In the highly anticipated Riyadh Season, winner-take-all match that took place at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Artur Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs) outpointed his arch-rival Dmitry Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) and the first undisputed light-heavyweight world champion of the four-belt era.
The fight didn’t have the fireworks that fans may have expected to see, but the bout was a solid technical contest. During the buildup to the battle for undisputed, fight fans and boxing pundits had this bout labeled as a 50/50 fight.
In the opening round of the undisputed light-heavyweight championship bout, Bivol started the contest by working his jab. Beterbiev wasn’t throwing many punches, but he was pressing forward, attempting to get himself into the proper range to unleash his offense.
In the second round, Bivol continued to use the jab and lateral movement. At the beginning of the third round, Beterbiev landed a solid straight right hand, but Bivol responded by connecting with a sharp one-two combination.
Bivol was dictating the pace of the fifth round with his movement and his counter punching. Beterbiev closed out the fifth round by applying pressure and landing solid shots. For the first five rounds Beterbiev did a lot of head hunting, but in round 6 he experienced success landing punches to the body.
Early in the 7th round, Bivol landed a quick counter right hand. In the final minute of the same round, Bivol connected with a flurry of punches, then Beterbiev answered by pressing forward and landing solid shots of his own.
Bivol’s lateral movement lessened in the eighth round and it allowed Beterbiev the opportunity to fight off the front foot and land a series of hard single shots. Bivol got back to sticking and moving in the ninth as he controlled the majority of the round.
In the championship rounds, Artur Beterbiev showed a sense of urgency by constantly pressing forward and staying in attack mode. At the conclusion of the 12-round contest, one judge scored the bout 114-114, but that score was overruled by the other two judges who scored the bout 115-113 and 116-112 in favor of Artur Beterbiev.
Artur Beterbiev was appreciative in regards to getting the victory, but he admitted he wasn’t happy with his in ring performance. Beterbiev entered the October 12th bout with a perfect knockout ratio, but Bivol forced him to go the distance for the first time in his professional career.
With a check of the temperature on social media, a large percentage of the boxing community believes Dmitry Bivol was the victim of a robbery. During the course of the championship bout, Bivol showed excellent ring generalship with his lateral movement, his use of angles, and his sharp counter punching.
The one thing that probably hurt Bivol with this set of judges is the fact that he spent the majority of the bout boxing off the back foot while Beterbiev was constantly pressing forward. Dmitry Bivol was the boxer who landed the cleaner punches, but obviously the judges were swayed by the visual of Artur Beterbiev being consistently aggressive.
As of now, Artur Beterbiev is the new undisputed light-heavyweight world champion. Beterbiev winning the fight on Saturday night wasn’t an egregious decision, but it’s a decision that definitely presents reasonable cause for a Beterbiev vs Bivol rematch.
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