Shawn Porter reckons Dmitry Bivol dominated Artur Beterbiev, winning by a wide score 8-4 in their undisputed lightweight championship fight on Saturday night in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Porter. he said Bivol’s movement took Beterbiev’s offense, not allowing him to land his punches.
Porter thought the shoeshine shots that Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) was landing were enough for him to get most of the rounds in the fight. Going into the fight, Porter had predicted that Bivol would be victorious. The judges scored it 114-114, 115-113 and 116-112.
Porter didn’t let Beterbiev hurt Bivol, forcing him to run and put him in survival mode throughout the second half of the fight. He had questioned his age and recent knee surgery going into the fight.
He thought the surgery would slow Beterbiev down enough for Bivol to win, but he looked almost as good as he did in his previous fight. The only difference is that Bivol was on his bike the whole time, trying to keep from being hit. He accomplished that goal, but he also lost.
Losing a decision was better than getting knocked out because Bivol now gets another payday in a rematch, which he wouldn’t have gotten if he had fought and fought Beterbiev and been KO’d.
“I think Bivol fought a great fight, but you can’t win a fight of this caliber fighting moments in fighting. Il s’est battu à coups de feu. Il s’est battu pour ne pas être mis KO. He fought to survive,” Lionell Thompson told the Porter Way Podcast channelTalking about Dmitry Bivol fighting in survival mode in his loss to Artur Beterbiev last Saturday night.
“He tried in moments, but when Artur hit him, you could tell. Sometimes, in a close fight like this, boxing is about perception. It’s about what looks best. You saw when Artur hit Bivol; sometimes, he would rage for a minute before throwing a punch.
“Artur was throwing and missing, but it looked like he wanted more, and obviously the punches do damage because he’s on that bike and he’s holding. He just fights with splashes. Bivol, I think if he fought more, if he would have been arrested if he fought more, and i think the judges saw that too.
“I thought he was fighting in spots and trying to steal the last seconds of the round. You saw a lot of his punches hit his gloves, but a lot of Bivol’s punches hit Artur’s gloves as well. He looked good. He looked flashy, but that’s why Artur was able to return immediately.
“I think the judges gave it to Artur because in those exchanges. When Bivol’s shots hit Artur’s gloves, he’s like, ‘Okay,’ but when Artur’s shots hit his gloves, you saw it was on that bike, like, ‘Oh, no.’ “.
It was obvious that Beterbiev’s punches hitting Bivol’s gloves were still causing a lot of damage to his head, because he was going away every time like a hot pan had burned him. He didn’t look happy after he was hit.
“I had 115-113 for Artur. I had Artur winning the last three rounds. At one time, I thought Bivol was about to cough. I think it was the tenth or eleventh. I thought it was about coughing,” he said Lonnie B.
It was more than once where Bivol looked close to being knocked down. There were many, but he survived by running away. If Beterbiev had been a little quicker in cutting the ring to Bivol, he would have KO’d him.
“I think that’s why the judges gave it to Artur because there were moments in the fight where Bivol was breaking down mentally, and you could tell he was mentally fighting like, ‘No, I can’t quit “. I can’t.’ He got on that bike and worked to survive,” Thompson said.
Bivol looked like he was ready to quit in rounds 8, 10 and 11 when he came under fire from Beterbiev. In the 12th, Bivol did not try to fight, but moved and held. Either he thought he had the fight in the bag, or he hoped to survive. Again, going the full 12 rounds meant Bivol could get a rematch, as the promoter and team would blow the whistle on him saying he should have won, even if they didn’t believe it. . Bivol knew that he did not win, and that is why he did not make a fuss about his loss.
“I felt like every time he had a moment, Bivol would take that moment away from him,” Shawn Porter said. “I felt like most of the moments that Beterbiev had, Bivol was able to get away from him and control him and not allow him to capitalize on those moments. I had Bivol winning the fight 8-4.”
The only way Bivol was able to take the “moment away” from Beterbiev in the last five rounds was to move, but he failed to throw punches. It was self-defeating. Bivol took moments away from Beterbiev, but he paid the price as he lost the fight because he wasn’t throwing punches.
