Beterbiev Punched Through Dmitry Bivol’s Defense

Dmitry Bivol says he could feel Artur Beterbiev’s power through his right hand while trying to protect his head on Saturday night in Riyadh. Beterbiev’s hard punches led him to a 12-round majority decision victory in their battle for the undisputed light heavyweight championship at the Kingdom Arena.

The beaten former WBA light heavyweight champion Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) states that Beterbiev’s shots drove his right hand inside his head. Even though Bivol was blocking the shots, the concussive force came through his hand into his head and did the damage.

Bivol had fought well even to win three of the first six rounds, but Beterbiev cranked his offense in the seventh round, landing huge shots in the last 30 seconds that turned the contest around. It was essentially all Beterbiev in the last six rounds of the fight.

The Judges’ scores

– 114-114
– 115-113
– 116-112

I had it for Beterbiev 8-4 as well based on him making a clean sweep of the second half of the contest with his pressure. Bivol reacted similarly to Beterbiev’s powerful punches as he had in his contest against Lyndon Arthur last December.

When Bivol was hurt by a body shot from Lyndon, he stopped fighting aggressively and played it safe for the entire second part of the fight. We saw the same thing last night when Bivol became very defensive after Beterbiev began laying siege to his castle. He wasn’t going to try to protect his WBA belt and gave it up to his foe. In other words, Bivol mentally quit when the going got tough. Beterbiev’s power scared him and took the fight out of him.

Bivol’s body language showed that he was afraid to open up about his offense. It was like a person who had dealt with a bad experience and didn’t want to go back into the same environment where they had suffered the trauma.

Of course, Bivol’s fans and his team still believe he deserved the win, but the reality is he was outgunned and had the fight beaten out of him by the IBF, WBC, and WBO light heavyweight champion Beterbiev.

“I don’t have any excuses. I don’t have my belt. I didn’t win the fight. I just want the rematch. I want to get another chance if possible. I could be better, I know,” said Dmitry Bivol to BoxNation, reacting to his loss to Artur Beterbiev. “I could win this fight, but I didn’t. I’m not happy with my performance because I don’t have my belts.”

His Excellency Turki Alalshikh says he wants to set up a rematch between Beterbiev and Bivol for 2025. Whether that will benefit Dmitry Bivol is unknown. He’ll make a lot of money in a second fight, but it’s doubtful he’ll be able to avenge his loss.

If anything, Beterbiev will improve in the second fight because he knows how to defeat Bivol with pressure and will start where he left off by taking the fight to him from the get-go.

“He has very strong punches. [I felt] his right hand even though my left. My thumb is swollen because I was holding it on my head, and he was beating on my hand. I felt like my hand came inside of my head from the power.”

Interestingly, Beterbiev’s short punches looked like they were thrown so effortlessly like he wasn’t attempting to load up on them, but the impact on Bivol’s head and gloves was loud. You could hear the force of the blows, and Bivol’s head was whiplashing, even when he was blocking the punches.