Commentator Sergio Mora predicts a late stoppage of Artur Beterbiev by Dmitry Bivol on Saturday night. Mora feels that Beterbiev’s career is over after he suffered a right knee injury five months ago in May, and he’s not had much time to return from the surgery. Even if he did, the meniscus injury he suffered can permanently affect a fighter’s career.
(Credit: Mikey Williams/Top Rank)
Fans and the media don’t know the severity of Beterbiev’s knee injury. If it wasn’t a severe one, that would explain why he’s been able to return to the ring so soon. It’s believed that Beterbiev was back in training in August, just three months after the injury.
“When you’re dealing with the knee, you can kiss your career goodbye pretty much,” said Sergio Mora to Chris Mannix’s YouTube channel, talking about Artur Beterbiev’s recent knee injury. “I think Bivol will get a late stoppage.
“I was watching both of these guys and I was favoring Bivol by a decision, but then I was watching how Bivol turns it on and stays consistent with his attack.”
Bivol isn’t a knockout puncher, and it’s not realistic to assume that he’s going to score a stoppage against Beterbiev unless his knee is in bad shape. Fighting with just one good leg will affect Beterbiev’s power as well as his ability to move.
“He didn’t turn it on against Lyndon Arthur,” said Mannix about Bivol’s cautious 12-round decision victory over Lyndon last December.
“Smart fighters are fine going the distance and not getting hit. He’s just too smart for his own good,” said Mora about Bivol. “Against Beterbiev, he’s not going to give him the opportunity to cross that finish line. Beterbiev would rather get knocked out in a great fight than lose a competitive decision. That’s why I think he’s going to get stopped; he’s going to run into something big by Bivol.
“I think Bivol is going to slice him up with that jab. It’s going to be heavy hands vs quick feet, and I’m favoring the quick feet of Bivol,” said Mora.
If Beterbiev’s scar tissue from his fight against Marcus Browne is vulnerable, he could get cut up, as Mora foresees. However, if Beterbiev does get cut up, that might make him more dangerous because he was a different animal once he was bleeding in the Browne fight.
The New Yorker Browne is a much bigger puncher than Bivol, and he hit Beterbiev with hard shots in the early going of that fight. But after Beterbiev over his right eye in the fourth round from an accidental clash of heads, he looked like an angry bull, walking through Browne’s formidable punches to land heavy blows to the head and body. In the ninth, Beterbiev knocked out Browne.
Bivol’s Footwork Will be Key
“It doesn’t matter if you can handle what he’s doing. If you’re taking shots and getting hurt, it changes the fight, and that can happen very quickly,” said Eddie Hearn to Fight Hub TV, discussing the Beterbiev-Bivol fight.
“People think against these fighters with good footwork, ‘All you’ve got to do is walk them down and let your hands go.’ It doesn’t work like that because they’ll pin you left, right, and center, and they’ll move off at the angles,” said Hearn.
If Bivol moved like Shakur Stevenson, Beterbiev would have a lot of trouble landing, but fighting like that would make it difficult for Dmitry to land his shots. No one can fight like that and expect to land enough shots to win a clear decision and keep the crowd from booing them out of the arena.
Hearn’s “global superstar” fighter, Shakur, puts up with the boobirds every time he fights, but he’s accustomed to that. Bivol has never been booed before. So, he won’t run from Beterbiev the way Hearn envisions for him to keep taking punishment.
“Dmitry’s footwork has got to be bang on in this fight. He said it the other day in an interview, ‘I have to win every round.’ You might win one or two along the way, but you’ve got to keep fighting round by round. You hope to get to nine or ten, and you’re 8-2 up, and then you’ve got two rounds to go,” said Hearn.
Bivol will eventually have to put himself in range of being hit, and that could be his problem. He’s not going to win a decision against Beterbiev by running around the ring for 12 rounds, trying to elude him. That’s not his style, and it has never been.
Bivol generally mixes it up with his opponents, dashing in to land a one-two using the classic Eastern European style and then stepping back two or three feet. He’ll often stop to throw a jab if his opponents pursue him. But even against the short 5’8″ Canelo Alvarez, Bivol was getting hit plenty, and his face was swollen afterward.
That was far from a shutout that Bivol pitched. He was marked up in that fight, and if Canelo can do that, it’s scary to think what Beterbiev will do.
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