Sergio Mora insists Dmitry Bivol deserved the win over Artur Beterbiev based on his defense and ring generalship. He says that Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) was blocking Beterbiev’s punches on his gloves, and he wasn’t affected by his shots.
Sergio Mora, a former light-hitting finesse-level fighter during his career, had picked Bivol to win before the fight, and he seemed troubled by his pick not going his way. He wanted Bivol to clinch and walk back Beterbiev, which he physically couldn’t do because of his lack of power and his unwillingness to battle him in the trenches.
Would Clinching Have Worked for Bivol?
The clinching approach that Mora wanted Bivol to use mirrors what DAZN commentator Tim Bradley wanted him to do. He felt Bivol should have hit Beterbiev and then immediately tied him up to neutralize his offense all night. That’s a loser game plan, which wouldn’t have worked against Beterbeiv. It’s easy for Mora to recommend that Bivol use holding as his strategy to win, but he’s not the one who had to get hit by him while trying to hold. Beterbiev was hitting Bivol hard during the clinches, and he did not like it.
Bivol did a lot of holding in the 12th round, but Beterbiev still landed the harder shots to dominate. Bivol’s constant clinching in the final round gave the impression that he was in survival mode and trying to stall out the fight.
Mora’s advice for Bivol to clinch Beterbiev probably wouldn’t have worked because he was still getting hit around the side of the head when he was holding. Bivol didn’t like getting hit point blank by Beterbiev during the clinches because his shots were still power despite him not having leverage to throw.
The judges scored the fight 114-114, 115-113 and 116-112.
Mora says Bivol should have used clinching and walked back Beterbiev to keep him from throwing. He feels that Bivol missed his chance to shut down Beterbiev’s offense and test his recently surgically operated-on knee.
“Bivol should have made him miss and back up the monster with the older legs. He had surgery, Beterbiev. You got to force that knee backwards,” said Sergio Mora to the Chris Mannix channel, playing Monday Morning quarterback, talking about what Dmitry Bivol should have done against Artur Beterbiev.
“Monsters don’t like backing up. When you clinch them and back them up, they don’t like that,” said Mora.
Nonstop clinching would have been useless for Bivol as a game plan because he couldn’t handle the short punching from the much stronger Beterbiev. If Bivol had a steel chin, maybe the spoiling tactics that Bradley and Sergio Mora were advising him to use would have worked. He didn’t and wasn’t willing to get clubbed by Beterbiev’s powerful shots.
“I still think Bivol did enough to win this fight. I thought the scorecards were wrong. I thought at worst, Bivol deserved a draw, but I thought he won handily,” said Mora. “The punches that were being landed in the second half of the fight were being landed on the gloves.”
The punches that Beterbiev was landing on Bivol’s gloves were being absorbed into his head, and he was affected. Many of the punches that Beterbiev was hitting Bivol with were connecting to his chin and on the side of his head. They weren’t being blocked. If Bivol hadn’t been affected by Beterbiev’s shots, he would have fought more aggressively in rounds 6 through 12.
“They weren’t penetrating the guard and knocking the head back of Dmitry Bivol,” said Mora. “So, I couldn’t give him total credit because they were hitting gloves. I wasn’t giving him credit and rounds for the punches that were landing on his gloves.
“I was giving Bivol credit for defense and ring generalship and not allowing Beterbiev to get his combinations off. I don’t see how the judges gave the decision to Beterbiev,” said Mora.
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