WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol won’t defeat unified champion Artur Beterbiev without standing his ground and fighting on October 12th. Bivol (23-0, 12 KOs) won’t be able to hold Beterbiev (20-0, 20 KOs) by turning the fight into a track meet for 12 rounds.
Beterbiev cuts off the ring too good for Bivol to get away with moving, and he can’t afford to exhaust himself by staying on the move for an entire fight. Bivol is 33 and not young enough to move for three minutes in each round.
Bivol vs. Beterbiev will be shown live on DAZN PPV from the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh. The oddsmakers have Bivol as the favorite due to his youth, boxing skills, and the fact that Beterbiev is coming off a knee injury.
“It’s an amazing fight for my career. Boxing fans want to see this fight,” said Dmitry Bivol to talkSport about his match against Artur Beterbiev. “It’s good that two fighters have different styles. It’s interesting.
“Of course, it helped my career to get more known. I got a lot of boxing fans from that fight,” said Bivol about his fight against Canelo Alvarez in 2022. “It was a fight that was a border. If we pass, we can go to another level.”
Luckily for fans, His Excellency Turki Alalshikh took an interest in making the Beterbiev vs. Bivol fight because we might not have ever seen it happen due to the networks and promoters.
“I don’t have anything in my head after October 12th. Only this fight for belts, and then we will see. I knew this fight would happen sooner or later.,” said Bivol about his fight against Beterbiev.
“This should be a classic. I’ve described it as the light-heavyweight version of Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. That is how close they are and how well-matched they are,” said journalist Colin Hart to Pro Boxing Fans. “Beterbiev is a beast when he gets in that ring. He’s 39, and he shouldn’t be where he is at 39.”
Bivol does not fight like the version of Muhammad Ali, who first fought Joe Frazier, and Beterbiev is totally unlike Frazier. If anyone, Bivol fights a lot like a younger version of Wladimir Klitschko before he started training with Emanuel Steward.
When Wladimir was young, he was a combination puncher who moved a lot. After Steward got a hold of Wladimir, he added a lot of clinching. He became kind of like Lennox Lewis.
“He’s unbeaten with 20 fights and 20 knockouts. Bivol beat Canelo. That gives you an idea of how good he is. So, flip a coin. I have to believe Beterbiev will win. It will be the first time he’s been taken the distance,” said Hart.
It’s going to be difficult for Bivol to go the full 12 rounds against Beterbiev because he’s got a lot of bad habits that will create opportunities for him to be knocked out. Bivol’s habits:
- Fighting off the ropes: Bivol frequently posts up against the ropes and looks to cover up. That’s worked against guys like Canelo, Gilberto Ramirez, and Lyndon Arthur, but I don’t think it will be against Beterbiev.
- Throwing combinations: This is the biggest flaw in Bivol’s game because he’s been a competition puncher from day one. He likes to throw two to four-punch combinations and sometimes as many as seven.
“His only strength is his skill. That is what will beat Beterbiev. He’s so skillful and so clever,” said Hart about Bivol. “It’s amazing when you think that two Russians are going to headline in Riyadh. It gives you an idea of the difference now in boxing from how it used to be.”
Bivol’s skills may not be enough for him to hold off Beterbiev, who will force him to fight at some point in the contest. He can’t move for the entire 12 rounds without standing and exchanging with Beterbiev without running the risk of losing a decision. The judges aren’t going to automatically give Bivol rounds if he’s fighting defensively as he did against Lyndon Arthur and Craig Richards. Those fights were hard to watch because Bivol showed no heart.
“It’s a fight that people will want to see. I’m not saying that people on the fringes of boxing will say the same thing because I’m pretty sure they don’t know too much about either of them,” said Hart.
Casual fans won’t likely bother purchasing the Beterbiev vs. Bivol event on DAZN PPV. However, a fair amount will watch it on ESPN+ if they have a subscription and stumble onto it on October 12th.
Casual fans won’t go searching for the event because these are foreign fighters, and the undercard is mostly UK guys that even the hardcore won’t be much interested in seeing in the U.S.
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