Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol 2 rematch will headline today’s announced February 22nd Riyadh Season card.
WBC interim junior middleweight champion Vergil Ortiz Jr. will defend against Israil Madrimov in a fight that no one had predicted would happen. His Excellency Turki Alalshikh kept this fight under wraps without anyone knowing. Madrimov came close to beating Terence Crawford in his last fight on August 3rd.
The former WBA junior middleweight champion Madrimov’s fight against Vergil Jr. is conditional, as he’s scheduled to face former WBC interim champ Serhii Bohachuk (24-2, 23 KOs) in a 12-round fight this month on December 21 on the undercard of Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk 2 rematch at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh.
Madrimov, 29, must win that fight and come through injury-free to return to training camp and prepare for the Vergil Jr. match on February 22nd.
Complete card for February 22nd
Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol 2
Daniel Dubois vs Joseph Parker
Shakur Stevenson vs Floyd Schofield
Carlos Adames vs Hamzah Sheeraz
Vergil Ortiz vs Israil Madrimov
Zhilei Zhang vs Agit Kabayel
Joshua Buatsi vs Callum Smith
In the co-feature bout, IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois defends against Joseph Parker. That fight arguably deserves to be pushed down below some other cards in this event. The placement of that match in the #2 spot in this event is debatable, but British fans will be pleased.
Parker used to be an entertaining fighter when he was young, but he’s morphed into a mover, and he’s not a must-watch fighter. This fight would be better off placed at the bottom of the televised portion of the main card.
WBC lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson (22-0, 10 KOs) will be a heavy favorite to defeat the prospect Floyd Schofield in the card at the #3 spot. If Schofield can rise up and pull off an upset, that would be amazing because no one has been able to land a punch on the defensive artist Shakur since he moved up to 135.
For some reason, Shakur personally hand-picked this guy. He could have chosen one of the highly ranked contenders, but he wanted the 22-year-old Schofield, which tells much about Shakur’s mindset. He’s not interested in running it back against Edwin De Los Santos, whom he stuck it out against last year on November 16th.
UK fans are excited about seeing #1 Hamzah Sheeraz (21-0, 17 KOs) challenge WBC middleweight champion Carlos Adames (24-1, 18 KOs) on this card. Adames is viewed as the weakest link among the champions at 160, and he was picked out by Sheeraz, who chose not to take on the #1 fighter in the division, IBF and WBO champion Janibek Alimkhanuly.
It looks less courageous on Sheeraz’s part when you factor in that he chose NOT to fight Janibek for his two titles and opted for the weakest champion, Adames. Therefore, this fight should be off the main card in the preliminary portion.
