In the long-awaited Riyadh Season, winner-take-all match that took place at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Artur Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs) overcame his rival Dmitry Bivol (23- 1, 12 KOs). ) and the first undisputed world lightweight champion of the four-belt era.
The fight didn’t have the fireworks fans were hoping to see, but the bout was a solid technical contest. During the buildup to the undisputed fight, fight fans and boxing pundits have been calling this bout a 50/50 fight.
In the opening round of the uncontested lightweight championship, Bivol started the contest by working on his jab. Beterbiev wasn’t throwing many punches, but he was pressing forward, trying to get himself in the right field to throw off his offense.
In the second round, Bivol continued to use the jab and lateral movement. Early in the third round, Beterbiev landed a solid right hand, but Bivol responded by connecting with a strong one-two combination.
Bivol dictated the pace of the fifth round with his movement and counter punching. Beterbiev closed out the fifth round applying pressure and landing solid shots. For the first five rounds, Beterbiev did a lot of head hunting, but in round 6 he was able to successfully land punches to the body.
Early in the 7th round, Bivol landed a quick counter right hand. In the final minute of the same round, Bivol connected with a flurry of punches, then Beterbiev responded by pressing forward and landing solid shots of his own.
Bivol’s lateral movement slowed in the eighth round and allowed Beterbiev the opportunity to fight on the front foot and land a series of hard single shots. Bivol came back to attack and move in the ninth as he controlled most of the round.
In the championship rounds, Artur Beterbiev showed a sense of urgency by constantly pressing forward and staying in attack mode. At the end of the 12-round contest, one judge scored the match 114-114, but that score was overturned by the other two judges who scored the match 115-113 and 116-112 in favor of Artur Beterbiev.
Artur Beterbiev was appreciative of getting the win, but admitted he wasn’t happy with his performance in the ring. Beterbiev entered the October 12th with a perfect knockout ratio, but Bivol forced him to go the distance for the first time in his professional career.
With a temperature check on social media, a large percentage of the boxing community believes that Dmitry Bivol was the victim of a robbery. During the course of the championship, Bivol showed excellent ring generality with his lateral movement, his use of angles, and his strong counter punching.
The one thing that probably hurt Bivol with this set of judges was the fact that he spent most of the boxing on the back foot while Beterbiev kept pressing forward. Dmitry Bivol was the boxer who landed the cleanest punches, but obviously the judges were influenced by the visual of Artur Beterbiev who was always aggressive.
As of now, Artur Beterbiev is the new undisputed world lightweight champion. Beterbiev winning the fight on Saturday night was not an egregious decision, but it is a decision that definitely presents a reasonable case for a Beterbiev vs. Bivol rematch.
