Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev will finally face off on Saturday night at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for all four light heavyweight titles. They wrote a card aptly titled IV Crown Showdown.
Beterbiev, who holds the IBF, WBO, and WBC belts, boasts a record of 20-0, all twenty of which have come by knockout, making him the only boxing champion with a 100% win rate. WBA-ranked Dmitry Bivol, not playing, is 23-0 with twelve wins. Both light heavyweight champions are ranked in the top ten in any pound-for-pound ranking.
This fight was supposed to take place in May, but Artur Beterbiev suffered from a meniscus tear during training. For fight fans, this is a dream match: boxer, Bivol, against puncher, Beterbiev. Artur Beterbiev has been an unstoppable force in the ring, with his brilliant skills and heavy hands stopping all players. Dmitry Bivol is a specialist in the squared circle, dominating his competition, including outgoing boxer Canelo Alvarez. According to the odds, Bivol is a slight favorite, but many observers consider this a quintessential 50-50 fight.
Aside from the difference in style between the two fighters, there won’t be much of a size difference on Saturday night. Bivol is 6 feet tall, with a reach of 72 inches, while Beterbiev stands at 5 feet, 11 ½ inches tall, with a reach of 73 inches.
Bivol and Beterbiev themselves are not strangers at all. The two were rookies when they boxed for the Russian national team, although they were in different weight classes. “I miss him in the national team, but we have never been friends,” said Beterbiev.
Neither man is currently fighting under the Russian flag, although both have ties to the country. Dmitry Bivol was born in Kyrgyzstan, but his family moved to St. Petersburg when Bivol was in elementary school. However, Bivol trains out of Joel Diaz’s gym in Indio, California. Artur Beterbiev represented Russia at the Olympics in 2008 and 2012, but when he was a student, he moved to Montreal.
Artur Beterbiev recently discussed his battle strategy. You don’t need to be a world-class trainer to guess what a man with twenty championships in twenty fights will try to do. “When I arrive, everyone can be fired,” Beterbiev said at a press conference. “At the same time, we don’t think about getting beaten, it’s not the main thing for our team.”
On the front of the fight, there was no big drama between Beterbiev and Bivol. Promoter Eddie Hearn has criticized Artur Beterbiev for not helping promote the big fight. “In the first presser, Beterbiev said three words. I found it arrogant because he flies with him, and his team […] And it’s like, wait a minute, you’re getting paid a lot of money, you’ve got the world’s media here, you owe us a little more than that. He couldn’t care less. And in a way, I respect it, but in a way, I think it’s a little disrespectful. I don’t expect him to show up and start rolling with Bivol here tonight, but he is a monster, you have your role to play in this fight, you get a lot of money, let’s play a game. a little.”
While I understand where Eddie Hearn is coming from, I don’t buy his grievances. Artur Beterbiev has twenty fights and won twenty fights by knockout. Beterbiev did something right in preparing for these battles; why should he want to mess with that? Eddie Hearn should be able to promote a big event with a big budget regardless of whether one of the two chooses to engage with the media. Hearn wants Beterbiev to help him do his job, but will Hearn step into the ring anytime soon and take Beterbiev’s punishment? In fact, Eddie Hearn makes a lot of money to promote a fight he is not involved in.
In 2022, before his victory over Zurdo Ramirez, Bivol was asked about a rematch with Canelo Alvarez. “Money is good, but inheritance, I think is better. I love money too. Everyone loves money. But money is not what I think about when I come to boxing. When I box, I want to make history. “If I was thinking about money, I wouldn’t be here,” said Bivol. Fortunately, the Saudi Royal Turki Alalshikh can take care of that concern. Bivol and Betervbiev will reportedly take home around $10 million each.
Bivol said that beating Beterbiev to become the lightweight champion would have a bigger impact than beating Canelo Alvarez. “It’s not about personality; it’s about the belt. Yes, fighting for the belt means a lot to me, to be marked in history. There is a lot. Yes, it is very meaningful.”
But enough money and legacy talk, how will the war go? Is Beterbiev fully recovered from his torn meniscus, which he sustained nearly six months ago? Can Beterbiev break Bivol’s will with his power, as he has done to so many before? Can Bivol land enough effective punches to make Beterbiev respect his striking power? Will Beterbiev have an answer to the power jab Bivol used so successfully against Canelo Alvarez? Depending on how the fight goes, can Beterbiev successfully box against Bivol, or will Bivol be able to shoot down Beterbiev’s power? How will each man respond to the inevitable hardships of fighting in such a great war?
Those are some of the questions that fight fans have been asking and debating since the thought of a matchup of Dmitry Bivol vs. Artur Beterbiev has delighted boxing fans over the years. Come tomorrow, question time is over. These two great champions will eventually collide.
Source link
