Dmitry Bivol’s filed a protest with the four governing bodies, hoping to get a rematch ordered with Artur Beterbiev after losing to him by a 12-round majority decision last Saturday night on October 12th at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Bivol’s team argues that the “majority of viewers” saw him as the real winner of the fight. Unfortunately, there’s no way of proving that the majority of viewers saw Bivol as the winner, so that’s a silly argument to make. I wonder who on Bivol’s team came up with that one.
A second fight makes sense if this is the only option for Beterbiev. If Canelo Alvarez or David Benavidez are available, those would be more appealing fights for Beterbiev than Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs), who has a Shakur-esque about him.
If there’s going to be a Beterbiev-Bivol rematch, it needs to be in a smaller ring to limit Bivol’s running room.
A rematch is expected to happen anyway, but the protest is a good method to help boost Bivol’s standing with the ultra-hardcore fans.
It wasn’t a particularly entertaining fight to watch due to the movement that Bivol used throughout the 12-round, and he clearly quit making a fight of it after being stunned in the seventh.
“Told that Dmitry Bivol’s team has filed a protest with all four sanctioning bodies seeking an immediate rematch with Artur Beterbiev. The basis for appeal is the belief that the majority of viewers had Bivol winning. Complaint draws parallels to Lewis-Holyfield I,” said Jake Donovan on X.
This move makes Bivol and his team look like poor losers because the judges saw Beterbiev as the winner. To make a fuss about it now looks weak, reminding some fans of a certain American fighter who couldn’t handle a loss. If Bivol wanted to win, he shouldn’t have run around the ring for the last half of the fight against the 39-year-old Beterbiev.
“When Beterbiev came to life, you thought, ‘This could be the end here,'” said Gareth A. Davies to talkSport Boxing, reflecting on how Beterbiev took over from the eighth round.
“Bivol has never been bullied like that before. I’m using that word because that’s what I witnessed. I said I gave Bivol the seventh, but I may have given him the ninth. I thought he was bullied in the last three rounds. It could have gone for 20 with him being bullied.”
Bivol definitely got bullied from the seventh on by Beterbiev, and he looked like he was close to being knocked out in several of the rounds. Fans wonder why Bivol didn’t fight harder in the 12th. The reason is simple. He was afraid to get knocked out because Beterbiev was coming like a locomotive, running him over, and Bivol couldn’t run any longer. That’s why he was holding so much in the final round.
“Some people might have said that Bivol was using his feet to get away. I thought Beterbiev was going after him, cutting off the ring from eight onwards,” said Davies.
Beterbiev was actually cutting off the ring from the sixth round on. There a flurry of shots from Bivol in the seventh, but he was clipped during that exchange by Beterbiev. The remainder of the seventh, Beterbiev beat the stuffing out of Bivol, and the fight was one-sided from that point on. Bivol ran the final five rounds to survive.
“This was the first time I was live for a Beterbiev fight. That power is real,” said Barry Jones. “He hits so hard that you’re watching, and you hold your breath. Beterbiev stayed calm and kept trying to corner him down. In the last two rounds, it looked like he was getting dividends for that work. He just couldn’t get the final finish.”
