Artur Beterbiev spent an hour straight working out with a sledgehammer, training for his rematch with Dmitry Bivol on February 22nd in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The event will be shown live on DAZN PPV.
Sledgehammer Strength
If Beterbiev intends to punch down on Bivol’s head, the sledgehammer workout could be beneficial. He’s developing his power on chopping down rather than straight across.
Artur must focus on cutting off the ring and fighting while being held because Bivol is expected to use a lot of movement.
In a recent interview, Dmitry said he would use more of what he did in the first fight, meaning he would move, punch, and tie up Beterbiev. Bivol mostly did this in their previous fight on October 12th, which is why he lost.
The undisputed light heavyweight champion Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs) is working on his power to knock out the former WBA 175-lb champion Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) to remove the judges from the equation for the rematch.
Many fans believed Bivol had done enough in their previous fight on October 12th to deserve the victory over Beterbiev in Riyadh. The judges disagreed, scoring it 115-113, 116-112 for Beterbiev, and 114-114 for Bivol.
Fans agree that Beterbiev got the better of Bivol in most of the final six rounds of the fight, putting him on the run. Bivol had given up trying to fight Beterbiev and trying to survive.
It was disappointing to watch because there had been so much build-up to the fight, with Turki Al-Shiekh doing a great job.
After being clipped in the sixth round, Bivol didn’t look like he wanted to mix it up with Beterbiev. The rematch is seen as the best fighters at 175, but that’s unrealistic.
There are better fighters than Bivol. If he loses the rematch, it’ll be nice if Turki lets one of the contenders get a chance rather than making a third fight.
If Beterbiev knocks out Bivol, that should be it unless Dmitry’s team screams bloody murder again, complaining they were robbed. I hope they don’t. It was listening to their bellyaching last time. Talk about your poor sports. The whole bunch of them.
