Fans are divided about who they see winning the Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol rematch on February 22nd in Riyadh. Some believe that Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) will duplicate his early success in the first fight last October but continue to outwork and outbox Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs) for the 12 rounds to get the decision.
The way Beterbiev talks, he plans to attack Bivol more fiercely in the rematch than in the first match. Last time, Beterbiev was coming off knee surgery, and he didn’t seem to have the same attack wheels as usual. So, when Bivol took off running in the entire second half, he couldn’t pursue him how he needed to force him to fight.
Bivol has no chance of knocking out Beterbiev because he doesn’t punch hard enough, and he’s unwilling to put himself in a position to score a stoppage by staying in the pocket. He tried that last time in the seventh round and got hurt by a hard counter right by Beterbiev.
That was when the fight turned around. Bivol took off running from then on and never stopped. The judges noted that he’d stopped trying to win, so they decided on the aggressor, Beterbiev.
Arur will be defending his undisputed light heavyweight championship against former WBA 175-lb champion Bivol in Riyadh on February 22nd. The event will be shown live on DAZN PPV. Interestingly, this might not be the best fight on the card.
Undercard Fights
Daniel Dubois vs. Joseph Parker
Shakur Stevenson vs. Floyd Schofield
Carlos Adames vs. Hamzah Sheeraz
Zhilei Zhang vs. Agit Kabayel
“We can say ‘close fight’ or anything, but I win this fight,” said Artur Beterbiev to iFL TV, reacting to being told that Dmitry Bivol’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, felt it was a close fight that could go either way when they previous fought on October 12th.
“Yes, I need to do some things different. Different combinations, everything different. Yes, box. I’m not a boxer,” said Beterbiev.
