For many, Saturday’s undisputed light-heavyweight championship fight is the center of the boxing calendar.
Whether or not the heavyweight carnage of the past 12 months has tickled your tastebuds, and with the promise of a second helping of Oleksandr Usyk-Tyson Fury looming in December, many still have the bout between WBC, WBO and IBF champion Artur Beterbiev and WBA king Dmitry Bivol as the must-see fight of 2024.
It has just about everything, including – most importantly – a delicate balance between who might win and how when weighing up who could have their hand raised as the best 175-pounder of this generation.
It is a fight boxing needs. It does represent the best versus the best in their weight division, and by a significant margin, and that is something that is all too rare today, despite the volume of unification fights and the cries that the best in each weight class are fighting each other with more regularity than in previous years.
There has indeed been some good action fights in 2024, but the theory that a boatload of new money has unlocked the fights we all have wanted is a fallacy because we seem no nearer to Shakur Stevenson fighting “Tank” Davis, David Benavidez landing the “Canelo” Alvarez bout, or Terence Crawford fighting “Boots” Ennis.
Assertions like these are always divisive; some fall into the same moaning bracket as me, and others are grateful for what we have had, rather than what we have not.
But here, with Beterbiev-Bivol, is where (for a change) we almost all unanimously agree. This is a badass fight that is one of, if not the, best fights that can be made in the sport – and it has been for some time.
“People want to make everything simple,” Bivol told me a few weeks ago.
“People want to understand who is the best fighter in the light-heavyweight division. And one of the guys has one belt; one of the guys has three belts. They need to see it. We want to see this fight to understand who’s the best.”
Just about everything about the contest, when you pair down the fighters and look at their records, styles and attributes, makes it appealing.
Both were top amateurs and have converted that pedigree into world honors as professionals and pound-for-pounders. Beterbiev has caused more excitement and carnage, and his 20-0 (20 KOs) ledger dazzles more imposingly than Bivol’s 23-0 (12 KOs).
As Beterbiev’s statistics indicate, he is an absolute brute. Those who get hit by him stay hit. His highlight reel of destruction stacks up alongside the great and the good historically at 175, while Bivol performs his surgery with a different type of methodology but no less precision.
It’s too easy to condemn Beterbiev for his blunt-force trauma. That does a disservice to his distance, timing, generalship and patience. He hasn’t beaten the people he has defeated so far simply by marching forwards and not stopping until they concede.
To work at the level he does and how he does it does mean he has to operate in harm’s way. It means he’s been dropped and he’s been caught. There is no disgrace in that. Jeff Page put him over with a right hand that he sprung back up from. Callum Johnson decked him with a short left hook that made him woozy. Others have had their successes, too, but inevitability creeps in and the walls soon begin to close.
Can the 33-year-old Bivol keep Beterbiev off him, and can the WBA champion stay out of the danger zone for 12 rounds? Those are among the many questions that will be answered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Historically, this fight really does matter. It’s not hyperbole or hoopla. It is not a line delivered with the promise of a bounty from the Saudi sovereign fund. This contest will spawn a true descendent to Tommy Loughran, Archie Moore, Ezzard Charles, Bob Foster, Michael Spinks and Roy Jones.
Commercially, how big a fight is between two Russians in Saudi Arabia, regardless of the caliber of the boxers or the intricacies and proposed violence in the actual fight, is another matter entirely.
Many felt Crawford’s Las Vegas showpiece with Errol Spence at the T-Mobile in Las Vegas in 2023 did not grow outwards, beyond the boxing bubble, and this is certainly no bigger than that. It is a must-see fight for the hardcore fans and a trade fight of the highest order. Time will tell if it is, in any way, a commercial juggernaut.
Some felt that Spence went into the Crawford fight as damaged goods – perhaps even Spence would agree – and while some say Beterbiev has displayed no signs of slowing in the ring, and he looked as destructive as ever in his past fight, the emphatic win over Callum Smith in Montreal, questions persist over whether his knee has had time to properly heal (this fight was delayed from June 1 after he ruptured his meniscus), whether inactivity will eventually play a role in his downfall or if, at nearly 40, Father Time has knocked on a door Beterbiev is standing on the other side of, hand outstretched, ready to open.
As with Spence, that will likely only become relevant if Bivol – already the conqueror of the aforementioned Canelo – wins decisively or emphatically.
According to the light-heavyweight contender Jesse Hart, a clear-cut winner would be a surprise. Instead, a fight that will take a lot out of both is what is both expected and desired.
“I think that’s going to be a war in itself,” he told me earlier this year. “And I believe that that fight – you’re going to get leftovers out of those two guys, as far as they’re not going to be at their peak after that fight.
“After that fight, I think that’s going to take a lot out of both of them. Because they both fight so hard and they’re both from Russia, they’ve both got that pedigree in them. So it’s not just about the world title, it’s about ‘Who’s the best in our country?’ This is Russia versus Russia; this is a personal thing as well. They want to be respected as the best. In Russia, people say Bivol is the best; people say Beterbiev is the best. Now they meet and figure out who really is the best over here [at 175 lbs], and it’s out of those two guys. So I believe that’s going to take a lot out of both of them.”
Will either fighter be the same afterwards?
“No, absolutely not. That’s why I say David Benavidez moved up [in weight] at the right time. He knows what he’s doing – there’s a reason why he went up to light heavyweight to fight [Oleksandr] Gvozdyk; he gets the leftovers of them two beating the hell out of each other, because that’s what it’s going to be.
“I think this fight is going to take a lot out of both fighters, whoever wins. I believe the fans are going to get their money’s worth, but I believe it’s going to take a lot out of both guys because they’re both resilient.”
Entering the fight, while it is worth weighing up every possible alternative, it is also worth appreciating what we finally have. Beterbiev-Bivol is a fight we’ve longed for for long enough. Now it is down to them to show us why, and to indulge our cravings as fight fans who are too often denied this magical feeling.
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