WBA lightweight champion Dmitry Bivol will not defeat unified champion Artur Beterbiev without staying on the ground and fighting on October 12. Bivol (23-0, 12 KOs) will not be able to hold off Beterbiev (20-0, 20 KOs) turning the fight into a 12-round track fight.
Beterbiev cuts the ring too good for Bivol to get away with the move, and he can’t afford to take it down to stay in motion for a full fight. Bivol is 33 years old and he is not young enough to move for three minutes every shift.
Bivol vs Beterbiev will be shown live on DAZN PPV from the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh. The oddsmakers have Bivol as the favorite because of his youth, boxing skills, and the fact that Beterbiev is coming off a knee injury.
“It’s an incredible fight for my career. Boxing fans want to see this fight,” said Dmitry Bivol to talkSport about his match against Artur Beterbiev. “It’s good that two fighters have different styles. It’s interesting.
“Of course, it helped my career to be better known. I got a lot of boxing fans from that fight,” said Bivol about his fight against Canelo Alvarez in 2022. “It was a fight that was a frontier. If we pass, we can go to another level.”
Fortunately for the fans, His Excellency Turki Alalshikh took an interest in making the fight of Beterbiev vs Bivol because we could never see it because of the networks and the promoters.
“I have nothing in mind after October 12. Only this fight for the belts, and then we’ll see. I knew that this fight would happen sooner or later,” said Bivol about his fight against Beterbiev.
“This should be a classic. I’d describe it as the lightweight version of Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. That’s how close they are and how well they’re matched,” said journalist Colin Hart Pro Boxing fans. “Beterbiev is a beast when he gets in that ring. He’s 39 years old, and he shouldn’t be where he is at 39.
Bivol doesn’t fight like the version of Muhammad Ali who first fought Joe Frazier, and Beterbiev is totally different from Frazier. If anyone, Bivol fights a lot like a younger version of Wladimir Klitschko before he began training with Emanuel Steward.
When Wladimir was young, he was a combo puncher who moved a lot. After Steward took Wladimir, he added a lot of clinching. He became like Lennox Lewis.
“He is undefeated with 20 fights and 20 KOs. Bivol beat Canelo. That gives you an idea of how good he is. So, flip a coin. I have to believe that Beterbiev will win. It will be the first time he has been taken the distance,” Hart said.
It will be difficult for Bivol to go the full 12 rounds against Beterbiev, because he has a lot of bad habits that create opportunities for him to be knocked out. Bivol’s habits:
- Struggle with the ropes: Bivol frequently stands against the ropes and tries to cover. He’s worked against guys like Canelo, Gilberto Ramirez and Lyndon Arthur, but I don’t think he’ll be against Beterbiev.
- Throw combinations: This is the biggest flaw in Bivol’s game because he has been a competition puncher since day one. He likes to throw two to four punch combinations and sometimes as many as seven.
“His only strength is his skill. That’s what will beat Beterbiev. He’s so skilled and so smart,” Hart said of Bivol. “It’s amazing when you think that two Russians are going to be a leader in Riyadh. It gives you an idea of the difference now in boxing from how it was before.
Bivol’s skills may not be enough for him to overcome Beterbiev, which will force him to fight at some point in the contest. He can’t move for the entire 12 rounds without standing and trading with Beterbiev without running the risk of losing a decision. The judges won’t automatically award Bivol if he fights defensively like he did against Lyndon Arthur and Craig Richards. Those fights were hard to watch because Bivol showed no heart.
“It’s a fight that people will want to see. I’m not saying that people on the fringes of boxing are saying the same thing because I’m pretty sure they don’t know too much about them,” Hart said.
Casual fans probably won’t bother buying the Beterbiev vs. Bivol event on DAZN PPV. However, a good number will watch it on ESPN+ if they have a subscription and stumble upon it on October 12.
Casual fans won’t go looking for the event because these are foreign fighters, and the undercard is mostly guys from the UK that even the hardcore won’t be very interested in seeing in the US.
