Teddy Atlas says he doesn’t feel the Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol fight was a steal like some people have suggested since their uncontested lightweight clash Saturday night in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The fans, especially the Bivol team, criticized the results of the fight. They think that Bivol should win well despite doing very little in the second half of the match. Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn insists Bivol should win 8-4.
How the battle was lost
He was adamant that Bivol should win and revealed that they will appeal the decision to the four sanctioning bodies to force a rematch with Beterbiev. Bivol basically caved in once Beterbeig took his offense and was no different from his past opponents.
The only difference was Bivol beat-feet to escape the heavy bombardment to save his skin, hoping to win a decision based on his early works. Bivol gave up the fight after the fourth round, and was long retired bitter, taking fire from his hips.
The judges saw that Beterbiev did enough to win with the following points:
– 114-114
– 115-113
– 116-112
Atlas, who has been involved in boxing for several years, felt that former WBA champion Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) had boxed well in the early rounds, landing combinations against IBF, WBC and WBO champion Beterbiev (21 years old). -0, 20 KO).
However, halfway through the contest, Beterbiev started his offense, and once that happened, he never let his foot off the gas pedal. He continued to attack Bivol, 33 years old, stuck to him as a “cheap costume”, did not give him relief from the pressure.
“When he gets you down, he keeps you down; he keeps throwing them (punches) as he goes,” Tedy Atlas said on his channelSpeaking of how Artur Beterbiev took the fight against Dmitry Bivol once he ramped up his offense in the middle of the round.
“He has a pace and punches with you, so you have no relief,” Atlas continued about how Beterbiev followed the retreating Bivol around the ring, hitting him and not letting him escape in the second half. “He’s right with you, and he follows you. He sticks to you like glue. You can’t get him off you.”
Atlas perfectly sums up how Beterbiev turned the fight around in the sixth round with his offense and Bivol’s non-stop pressure. Beterbiev walked through Bivol’s jabs, blocking or absorbing the blows and nailing him with powerful short punches to the head.
In the tenth round, Beterbiev landed a right hand to Bivol’s body, which would have deflated him like a tire. After that punch, the killed Bivol looked in pure panic. It was like a grizzly bear chased him in the forest, and he could not escape the beast, which hammered him repeatedly with blows to the head and body, mauling.
CompuBox Final Punch Statistics:
- Beterbiev: 137 landed out of 682 launched for a 20% connection rate.
- Bivol: 142 of 423 for 34%
What these stats don’t show is the power of the punches that Beterbiev was connecting and their effect on Bivol. Beterbiev’s punch wore down Bivol like clockwork, leaving him too weak, injured and drained to do anything more than run around the ring.
Bivol took a pounding in rounds 10, 11 and 12, taking punishment from Beterbiev without throwing much of anything. In the 12th round, Bivol came out with a moan, holding and running around the ring.
He surrendered to Beterbiev, and it was sad to watch because he had spoken in bold terms before the fight about what he was going to do in the contest. But when the going was tough, he surrendered and didn’t want to go out on his shield like a soldier in battle.
Bivol didn’t humiliate himself after the fight by arguing that he deserved the decision because he knew he had wilted under Beterbiev’s pressure and wasn’t going to make a federal case of his loss. However, Bivol should have told Hearn to screw up and not make his side look like a poor loser afterwards by crying about the result. It looked so bad with the way Hearn was panting non-stop after the fight and continued to complain days later.
Hearn made his Bivol fighter look bad with the japping he did after the fight, showing that he was ultra-salty about the defeat and didn’t want to take the high road to show class.
