Two-time Russian Olympian Artur Beterbiev (6-0, 6 KOs) completely dismantled former IBF light heavyweight champion Tavoris Cloud (24-3, 19 KOs) on Saturday night in knocking him down 4 times en route to stopping him in the 2nd round at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. Cloud, 32, was down 3 times in the 1st round, and 1 time in the 2nd round. The fight was stopped by referee Michael Griffin at 0:38 of the 2nd.
Cloud looked in serious distress even before he was knocked down for the first time. He was hit with some hard body shots in the first minute of round 1, and you could see from the way that Cloud reacted that he wasn’t going to last long in the fight. Beterbiev caught Cloud against the ropes at hammered him with left and right uppercuts until he dropped to the canvas.
Moments later, Beterbiev knocked Cloud down again with some powerful uppercuts after crowding him in the center of the ring. Cloud was then knocked down a third time as the clock ran out ending the round. A hurt looking Cloud got back to his feet and walked to his corner. In hindsight, the smart thing for Cloud’s corner to do would have been for them to stop the fight in between rounds, because there was no way that Cloud was going to be able to survive another round, not with the way that Beterbiev was nailing him with huge shots. Cloud didn’t have the defense, the chin or the mobility to avoid Beterbiev in order to survive.
At the start of the 2nd, Beterbiev drove Cloud to the corner and hit him with storm of uppercuts ending with a right hand that knocked Down down face first on the canvas. This time the referee Michael Griffin stopped the fight after Cloud failed to beat the count.
Beterbiev looks like he might be too much for the likes of Adonis Stevenson, Jean Pascal, Jurgen Braehmer and Bernard Hopkins. The only fighter that might give Beterbiev some problems is Sergey Kovalev, but even he might not be able to do with Beterbiev’s fierce attacks.
Beterbiev is like a bigger version of Gennady Golovkin. He punches with huge power with either hand, and he’s a dangerous body puncher.
Undercard action on tonight’s card:
Dierry Jean TKO 5 Daniel Ruiz
Antonin Decarie TKO 5 Ivan Pereyra
Kevin Bizier TKO 1 Laszlo Fazekas
Yves Ulysse Jr UD 6 Krystian Huczko
Erik Bazinyan UD 6 Baptiste Castegnaro
Steven Butler TKO 2 Bernard Follea
Cedric Spera UD 4 Stephane Ouellet