Artur Beterbiev says his team made some changes in his training and he hopes to be at least 10% improved for his rematch with Dmitry Bivol on February 22nd in Riyadh.
Undisputed light heavyweight champion Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs) isn’t revealing what areas he’s improved, but he’s counting on it being enough to make the fight more exciting.
10% Better
The look on Beterbiev’s face during interviews this week suggests that he’ll be attacking Bivol nonstop and forcing him to either fight or flee. Last time, Bivol fled, which saved him from being knocked down, but it still cost him the fight. He was too focused on survival.
I suspect that will be his main goal this time once he begins feeling the heat from Beterbiev. Bivol is a good fighter when he’s not dealing with anything being thrown back at him. But when his opponents throw, he shells up or retreats. He’s always fought that way.
“We changed some things up in training. I hope to be better in this fight than I was in the first fight,” said Artur Beterbiev to talkSport Boxing about his rematch with Dmitry Bivol on February 22nd. “Before I was undisputed, I wanted to get a fourth belt. Now, I want to keep them.
“If I receive some offers for this thing, I will look at them. So far, I’ve only received an offer for a rematch and I accepted it,” said Beterbiev when asked if he’d be open to moving up to cruiserweight after this to fight.
“I can take any fight if I have different offers. I will check with my team and take it,” said Beterbiev when asked if he would be interested in fighting Canelo Alvarez or Jai Opetaia if he defeats Bivol.
“28,” said Beterbiev when asked how old he is.
Bivol’s Tactics
He’s too old at 34 to change now, and the only thing he can do differently in the rematch is to hold more. That’s what many fighters say he should have done last time. That’s what we’ll likely see more of from Bivol to neutralize Beterbiev’s offense.
Last time, Beterbiev started slowly, letting Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) win the first quarter of the fight with his jab and quick left-right combinations.
Beterbiev began resembling his usual self at the midpoint of the fight. Bivol had gotten confident and showed no respect for Artur as he’d done in his recent fights against Malik Zinad, Lyndon Arthur, and Gilberto Ramirez.
Clearly, Bivol misjudged Beterbiev and paid the price because he took over the fight from round six and never looked back. The scores were 115-113, 116-112 for Beterbiev, and 114-114.
Interestingly, many fans and fighters are pulling for Bivol to win the fight. They believe that he’d done enough to win the first fight, even they admit that he didn’t appear to win one round from the sixth. They still think he won. It didn’t look like Bivol won.
For Bivol to win, he’s going to need to fight with more aggression, too, because Beterbiev is going to be putting more pressure on him this time. The judges favored Artur’s attacking style to the retreating that Bivol did.
“If I have a chance for 10%, I’ll be much better,” said Beterbiev to Queensberry Promotions about how much improvement would make him happy for his rematch with Bivol. “I can’t tell you. You will tell Bivol. I know you talk about me to Bivol,” said Beterbiev when asked what areas he wants to improve.
“I hope and believe it’ll be more interesting fight than the first one, because now we know each other,” said Beterbiev about the rematch with Bivol.
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