Ranking the seven fights on the Artur Beterbiev-Dmitry Bivol II pay-per-view

The February 22 pay-per-view card topped by Artur Beterbiev-Dmitry Bivol II is arguably the deepest boxing card in history. 

The headliner alone is enough of a draw, but an evenly matched bout between light heavyweight contenders as the opener? Two matchups of top-10 heavyweights? Vergil Ortiz Jnr-Israil Madrimov, one of the best matchups in one of boxing’s hottest divisions, in the middle of the card, and Shakur Stevenson in neither the main nor co-main? Any of these fights could be worthy main events. 

When there is an abundance of quality, there must be a ranking. Though all these bouts are anticipated, some are inevitably more well-matched or stylistically attractive than others. So let us rank the seven bouts, taking into account the magnitude, evenness, and potential for action of the matchups:

7. Shakur Stevenson vs. Floyd Schofield Jnr

The only fight on the card featuring canyon-wide odds. Make no mistake, Stevenson is a top, relevant talent always worth watching, even if his fights aren’t aesthetic masterpieces. But this fight is clearly a step below the others. 

Stevenson is coming off a hand injury. Before that were an epic dud against Edwin De Los Santos in November 2023 and a unanimous decision win over Artem Harutyunyan last July that didn’t quite erase the stink from the De Los Santos bout.

Schofield is undefeated and ambitious, but he’s also green – the fight with Stevenson will be just his second career outing scheduled for 12 rounds. On top of that, Schofield doesn’t have any elite names on his record. Due to the apparent mismatch and Stevenson’s tendency of late to fight in a negative style, if I have to take a bathroom break during the card, it’ll be during this fight. 

6. Zhilei Zhang vs. Agit Kabayel

“Big Bang” Zhang reliably delivers fireworks in the ring. Look no further than his last two wins – over Deontay Wilder and Joe Joyce – for knockouts as spectacular as you’ll ever see. But Zhang is also 41 years old and has always had dodgy stamina. 

Kabayel, meanwhile, is an undefeated heavyweight contender and a fun fighter, and as vicious and dedicated a body puncher as exists in boxing’s glamour division. He is also somewhat of an unknown quantity against the elite, though, and earned what are likely his best wins in a majority decision over Derek Chisora way back in 2017 and a body-shot knockout of Frank Sanchez last year. This feels like a fight that merely advances the winner one step closer to a title shot, not one that determines the next heavyweight to watch. 

5. Joshua Buatsi vs. Callum Smith

The only real knock on this fight is that neither man can claim to be the best at 175lbs, and this fight won’t tell us who is. 

Buatsi is underrated to a likely unfair degree, a career-long light heavyweight who fans and media were all too willing to displace from the No. 3 spot in the division when David Benavidez won two fights at light heavyweight. 

The memory of Beterbiev dominating Smith so thoroughly last year is still fresh, as is Smith’s flat loss to Canelo Alvarez in 2020, and as such he feels like a known quantity. If Smith wins, it’d be difficult to justify him getting a title shot again so swiftly, and if Buatsi wins, the division likely proceeds as expected.

4. Carlos Adames vs. Hamzah Sheeraz

The hollowed-out middleweight division needs this fight. With no disrespect intended to unified titleholder Janibek Alimkhanuly and the ageless wonder that is Erislandy Lara, Adames-Sheeraz feels like as good a fight as can be made at 160lbs. 

Sheeraz’s last 15 fights have all been wins inside the distance (you are free to make comparisons to Gennadiy Golovkin in the comments), and he’s looked so good that he’s actually the betting favorite against the defending titleholder in Adames. This feels certain to be an action fight, and one that might spice up the once-proud, now-bland middleweight division.

3. Daniel Dubois vs. Joseph Parker

Narratively the best fight on the card. Both men are in the midst of thoroughly impressive and inspiring career comebacks (pause for a second and remember that Joe Joyce stopped both of them), and this fight has serious stakes: the winner could be Oleksandr Usyk’s next opponent. 

The action potential here is a bit of a question; Dubois is a solid favorite, and Parker isn’t exactly a heavyweight Arturo Gatti. But this is a fight between two bona fide top-five heavies, and the potential prize (beyond Dubois’ IBF world title) of a shot at undisputed heavyweight glory feels utterly deserved for whichever fighter wins.

2. Vergil Ortiz Jnr vs. Israil Madrimov

I almost gave this fight the top spot. 

Ortiz is a fight fan’s dream of an action fighter. Madrimov is a skilled technician. They are among the best in the stacked junior middleweight division right now, and it feels like a privilege that we get to find out who is the better of the two of them. This is a hardcore boxing fan’s fight, the kind of high-quality matchup between fighters without a ton of star power that so often can’t generate enough money to get made. 

Why the No. 2 ranking, then? Madrimov’s fight with Terence Crawford, while fascinating, wasn’t the kind of barnburner most fans might hope for. Madrimov somewhat neutralized Crawford with herky-jerky feints, and it’s possible that he just has a style that sucks two-way action out of any fight. Ortiz-Madrimov might be a great fight. But we’ve already gotten Beterbiev-Bivol once, and it was a great fight. 

1. Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol

I hesitated to rank this rematch No. 1, partly because Ortiz-Madrimov is such a mouthwatering matchup, but also because I have some doubts about Beterbiev’s form. 

Historically, 40-year-old fighters do not often win fights against elite opponents, nor do they sit steadily on the upper half of most pound-for-pound lists. We can debate how much Beterbiev has slipped already, but a heavier decline is surely coming soon, and there’s a chance that decline will impact this fight. 

But come on: Beterbiev-Bivol I was a joy. 

We saw Bivol frustrate and neutralize Beterbiev with fast counters, to the extent that Beterbiev not only failed to get his clockwork knockout for the first time in his career, he also never even dropped or wobbled Bivol. We saw Beterbiev’s unrelenting power and pressure rule the 11th round, as he pounded a shelled-up Bivol onto just about every inch of the ropes. 

Beterbiev won the fight by majority decision, but there were at least as many observers who felt Bivol won as there were people who agreed with the scorecards. Beterbiev and Bivol’s careers have been leading to a matchup with each other, and their styles are made to intertwine, so this rematch is a most deserving main event on an excellent card.