Dmitry Bivol says Artur Beterbiev has “What I want’ and will be coming for his three light heavyweight belts on Saturday night in their 175-lb undisputed bout in Riyadh. The four world titles will be at stake for the contest between WBA champion Bivol (23-0, 12 KOs) and IBF, WBC, and WBO champ Beterbiev (20-0, 20 KOs) at the Kingdom Arena.
Most fans ignore Beterbiev’s boxing skills and two-time Olympic credentials and assume that Bivol will outbox him with no problems on Saturday night. This is interesting, but it also reflects that few people have done much research on the two fighters and are just going by things like the age difference and hearsay.
“Artur is a great champion. He has what I want. He has belts. It’s not only belts. When I look at his skills. I want to check my skills against this amazing fighter,” said Dmitry Bivol to Top Rank Boxing during today’s final press conference for his fight against Artur Beterbiev on Saturday. “I’m ready for Saturday night, and we will talk with actions in the ring.”
When Bivol made the above statement, he showed the most emotion during the entire promotion. He looked like he wanted to tear Beterbiev’s head off when talking about his belts, but we’ll see if he can back up his tough talk.
This isn’t Canelo Alvarez or little little-known substitute Malik Zinad that Bivol will be fighting on Saturday night. He will be facing the real thing, and if his chin hasn’t improved since Joe Smith Jr hurt him, he won’t last long against Beterbiev.
“Eddie Hearn is irrelevant in that organization and in that fight on Saturday night,” said Marc Ramsay, the head trainer for Beterbiev. “He’s not going to throw punches. He’s not going to do nothing. He’s not going to change nothing for Saturday night.”
Ramsay is talking about how Bivol’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, called Beterbiev “arrogant” during the final press conference today and seemed to be intent on getting him riled ip to lose focus. Hearn wants Beterbiev to be mentally unraveled by the time he steps inside the ring on Saturday so that it can help Bivol.
“I think Artur Beterbiev will get outboxed for six rounds. It’ll be a masterclass from Dmitry Bivol, but Beterbiev never gives up. That will to win, and I think that will make him win later on in the contest,” said broadcaster Spencer Oliver. “I think he’ll eventually catch up to Dmitry Bivol and may break his heart.”
Beterbiev getting outboxed for six rounds without him catching Bivol with something big to hurt him is hard to imagine. In Beterbiev’s fight against the much bigger and more mobile Oleksandr Usyk in the 2012 Olympics, he was still able to get to him to hurt him with shots against the ropes.
Usyk was moving nonstop in that three-round fight, but he couldn’t prevent Beterbiev from getting to him. Beterbiev was arguably robbed in that fight. The 33-year-old Bivol isn’t as good a mover as the 25-year-old Usyk was back then.
“Is Bivol going to try and push Beterbiev back and take the center of the ring, or is he going to try and fight on the outside and do what he does,” said commentator Ade Oladipo. “I also feel like you need to bully the bully here. Beterbiev, in his 20 fights, has shown that he’s the bully, he’s the master, and he dictates how his fights play out.”
Let’s make this clear: Bivol is not going to “try and push Beterbiev back” because that is not how he fights and definitely not how he would approach this contest. Bivol doesn’t need his trainers to tell him not to do something wacky like that. Ade sounds like he’s not been watching Bivol fight for long.
“I need someone to try and bully him to see him on the back foot. I almost feel like the first round because they respect each other so much; it could be your traditional feel-out round where they have a look at each other. Then, in the second and third rounds, they explode,” said Ade.
Bivol isn’t going to try to “bully” Beterbiev the way Ade wants him to because he’s not insane. He knows that marching straight into the teeth of Beterbiev’s offense would doom him to failure, and he’s not going to put himself in a situation like that unless he’s far behind in the fight.
If it’s late in the contest and Bivol is trailing badly, he’ll go all out, trying to bully Beterbiev, but he won’t try that tactic early on. He’ll briefly attack Beterbiev, as he did against Canelo Alvarez, and then reverse gear and scat. Even against Canelo, Bivol showed no heart for standing in front of him for any length of time to unload punches.
“It’s going to be interesting. I can’t wait for the referee to say, ‘Go to your corners,’ and it’s on because I’ve been waiting for this fight for the better part of two years,” said Ade.
