At the end of the night and fight that mattered, Artur was simply better.
Some will argue ‘not’, some will say ‘just’, but we firmly believe the incoming WBC, IBF and WBO champion Artur Beterbiev won the fight and proved his superiority on the night.
Beterbiev raised his impressive record to 21-0 (20 KOs) and the incoming WBA champion Dmitry Bivol suffered his first defeat in his 24th fight at the Kingdom Arena, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
We promised you a fight of the year contender, and that’s just what we got !
Not your all-out slugfest with multiple knockdowns or one fighter coming back from the brink to prevail, but rather a technical and power-punching masterclass between two elite operators. It was ‘boxing chess’ but with seriously bad intentions.
The 36 minutes of action will live long in the memory and the resulting exchanges and outcome are crying out for an immediate rematch.
That will take some pulling together, but Saudi money and the will of the boxing hierarchy and powerbrokers will make it happen.
We made Beterbiev a clear winner, albeit by two-three rounds. We were closer to the third returned card of 116-112 that top trainer and boxing expert Teddy Atlas referred to as “absurd”. We couldn’t see that, but value and accept his judgement and rationale.
Other returned cards from the judges were a 114-114 draw and 115-113 in favour of Beterbiev, making the victory to him on a majority decision.
Like Atlas we gave the new undisputed champion the last two ‘championship’ rounds to secure the victory. We did though have him ahead going into those, witnessing him landing the heavier blows with the greater impact, controlling the pace of the fight from ring centre and being the more aggressive and accurate fighter throughout.
We knew that Bivol would attempt to control the tempo of the contest from the outside of the ring. This, he did at times, but although many, were fewer in the moments that mattered.
The 33 year old man from St. Petersburg was effective when he landed his heavy blows on the end of his long jab. He took the opening two rounds by imposing his game-plan immediately, but once Beterbiev worked his way into the fight he controlled its tempo and eventual outcome.
In our view Bivol just didn’t land as consistently and repetitively the heavy shots that Beterbiev did.
Neither fighter was rocked or over-troubled by the sorties that followed some of the most outstanding technical boxing you will witness.
Bivol’s greatest accomplishment was ensuring that in making the fight extremely competitive, he heard the final bell and halted Beterbiev’s up ’til then perfect KO record. This was rarely in doubt.
The 39 years of Beterbiev and his miniscus injury never became an issue as he lasted the hectic pace throughout.
The now undisputed world light-heavyweight champion, forever humble said post-fight “I feel not bad. I did not good today. I wanted to box today with more quality. I don’t know why, but I didn’t like this fight. But I’ll be better one day” He complimented Bivol’s grit, skills and effort, and finished .. “But today, Allah chose me”.
The defeated fighter was equally complimentary of his opponent and offered his congratulations and ended “He deserves it. No problem”.
Saturday was a credit to both fighters and the sport of boxing. It will also hopefully put to bed the flip-flopping of pronunciation of Artur’s surname. Me being one of the main culprits.
The bearded Dagestan Muslim was better and that should remove all doubt for the time being at least. Bivol goes on to fight another day with his reputation intact.
More of the same please !
The Undisputed 