Shawn Porter felt that Dmitry Bivol was in control of Artur Beterbiev, winning by a wide score of 8-4 in their undisputed light heavyweight championship fight last Saturday night in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Porter. he said Bivol’s movement took Beterbiev’s offense away, not allowing him to attack his punches.
Porter felt the shoeshine shots landed by Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) were enough to get most of the rounds in the fight. Going into the battle, Porter had predicted that Bivol would win. The judges scored it 114-114, 115-113 and 116-112.
Porter didn’t think Beterbiev would hurt Bivol, forcing him to run and put him in survival mode during the second half of the fight. He has questioned his age and his recent knee surgery to go to war.
He figured the surgery would slow Beterbiev down enough for Bivol to win, but he looked as good as he did in his previous fight. The only difference is that Bivol was riding his entire bike, trying to avoid getting hit. He achieved that goal but failed.
Losing the decision was better than getting fired because Bivol now gets another lead in the rematch, which he wouldn’t have gotten if he had stood up and fought Beterbiev and been knocked out.
“I thought Bivol fought a great battle, but you can’t win a battle in this kind of fighting times in wars. He fought with great haste. He fought not to be beaten. He fought to survive,” said Lionel Thompson on the Porter Way Podcast, talking about Dmitry Bivol fighting for survival when he lost to Artur Beterbiev last Saturday night.
“He tried from time to time, but when Arthur hit him, you could see it. Sometimes, in a fight this close, boxing is all about perception. It’s about what looks best. You saw when Artur was going to beat Bivol; sometimes, he would run away a minute before throwing a punch.
“Artur was throwing but missing, but it looks like he wanted more, and obviously the punches are doing damage because he’s on that bike and he’s holding it. He fights only in brief. Bivol, I think if he had fought more, he would have stopped if he had fought more, and I think the judges saw that, too.
“I think he was fighting for spots and trying to steal the last seconds of the round. He saw most of his punches hit his gloves, but most of Bivol’s shots hit Artur’s gloves, too. It looked good. It looked shiny, but that’s why Arthur was able to get back there.
“I think the judges gave Artur because of those discussions. When Bivol’s gun hits Artur’s gloves, he’s like, ‘Okay,’ but when Artur’s gun hits his gloves, he realizes he was on that bike, like, ‘Oh, no.’ So, when you actually sit down, I had Arthur win. It was a close fight, but I think the right man won. I want to see a repeat.”
It was obvious that Beterbiev’s punches that hit Bivol’s gloves were causing a lot of damage to his head because he was taking off every time like a hot pan burned him. He could have looked happy after the beating.
“I had 115-113 on Artur. I got Artur winning the last three rounds. In one round, I thought Bivol was about to cough it up. I thought it was the tenth or the eleventh. I thought he was going to cough it up,” said Lonnie B.
It was more than one round where Bivol looked set to be knocked out. There were many of them, but he survived by running away. If Beterbiev had been quick to cut the ring from Bivol, he would have taken him out.
“I think that’s why the judges gave Artur because there were times in the fight where Bivol broke down mentally, you could tell he was fighting mentally like, ‘No, I can’t stop. I can’t.’ He got on that bike and survived,” said Thompson.
Bivol looked like he was ready to quit in the 8th, 10th, and 11th rounds when he was attacked by Beterbiev. On the 12th, Bivol did not try to fight but moved and held. He thought he was stuck in a bag, or he hoped he would survive. Once again, going all 12 rounds means that Bivol may get a rematch because the promoter and the team would have muddied the waters saying that he should have won, even if they don’t believe it. Bivol knew he didn’t win, and that’s why he didn’t make a noise about his loss.
“I felt whenever he had a moment, Bivol was going to take that moment,” Shawn Porter said. “I felt like a lot of times Beterbiev had, Bivol was able to take it away from him and control us and didn’t let him take advantage of those times. Bivol won the battle 8-4.”
The only way Bivol was able to take the “moment” out of Beterbiev in the last five rounds was to walk, but he couldn’t throw punches. That was self-defeating. Bivol took a moment from Beterbiev, but he paid the price because he lost the fight because he wasn’t throwing punches.
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