Dmitry Bivol’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, sounded like a classic example of a sore loser after his 12-round majority decision defeat against unified light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev last Saturday night in Riyadh. He was having difficulty understanding what had happened to his fighter Bivol, who crumbled under the pressure from hard-hitting Beterbiev in their clash.
Matchroom boss Hearn had Bivol winning 8-4 in mind and was in shock at seeing him lose. It looked obvious what had happened. Once Bivol started getting hit hard by Beterbiev in the seventh, he stopped fighting and ran the last five rounds and lost.
Beterbiev Ruined the Big Canelo Plans for Bivol
Hearn says he wants the judge who scored the fight 116-112 for Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs) never to work another fight. Obviously, Bivol’s loss messes up Hearn’s hopes for a fight against Canelo Alvarez that would have been in play if he’d won.
The Canelo-Bivol rematch would have raked in the sweet dough, bringing in untold riches. Instead, Bivol has his first loss, and his career looks shaky, so he needs to try to avenge the loss. That doesn’t look good.
A rematch could be far worse for Bivol, with him likely getting knocked out by Beterbiev. If Bivol loses again to Beterbiev, he’ll be a useless ballast for Hearn, who won’t be able to do much with him other than use him as a B-player to fight David Benavidez, David Morrell, or Joshua Buatsi.
Interestingly, the 116-112 score that Hearn was railing about was the same score that many fans on social media had it for Beterbiev, who outworked a tired-looking and hurt Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) in the last half of the action last night at the Kingdom Arena.
“How can we forget what just happened in the ring? Do we want to forget about in one of the biggest fights of our generation and in the most important fight of Bivol’s life, you give him four rounds? It’s absolutely disgusting,” said Eddie Hearn to Matchroom Boxing, talking about the judge that scored Beterbiev vs. Bivol fight 116-112 for Artur.
“They knew Artur Beterbiev had lost this fight,” said Hearn about Beterbiev’s corner. “Top Rank knew Beterbiev had lost this fight. Then, the word got around that Artur Beterbiev had won a majority decision. I’m absolutely baffled and disgusted by the scorecard of 116-112. 115-113, I don’t like it.
“8-4 to Dmitry Bivol,” Hearn said about how he scored the fight, giving his fighter Bivol the win by a round margin of 116-112 over Beterbiev. “He [Bivol] boxed beautifully in there tonight. I don’t want to disrespect Beterbiev, but Bivol should be the undisputed champion tonight, and that judge should never work again,” said Hearn about the judge scoring 8-4 for Beterbiev.
“Four rounds of a fight of this magnitude is disgusting. I’m not saying it was a runaway victory or a landslide for Dmitry Bivol. No one had Artur Beterbiev winning that fight. I didn’t even hear a draw. Beterbiev was deflated. They knew they lost the fight.
“It was such a beautiful fight to watch. Dmitry was so smart. He got hurt a couple of times. He hurt Beterbiev a couple of times. He took so much on the gloves. All the marking around here [on Bivol’s face]. You could see that it was from the gauze on his tape.
“He just boxed a beautiful fight in a tough-fought fight. When you get an opportunity like that and box that way and not get the decision, it really hurts,” said Hearn.
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