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Mike Coppinger, ESPN Boxing Insider
There is no doubt Championship boxing fights, and then there are real summit meetings. Saturday’s show in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is his last and will crown not only the best light heavyweight in the world, but the best 175-pounder of all time.
Artur Beterbiev – the only boxing champion with a 100% knockout rate – will put his WBC, WBO and IBF titles on the line while Dmitry Bivol will risk his WBA belt in a fight for all the marbles. For the past seven years, the two Russian fighters have dominated the light heavyweight division, but countless reasons have prevented a clash to determine who is better.
Since 2017, Beterbiev, Bivol and then everyone else have been at £175. Their greatness extends beyond weight class, though: They’re also pound-for-pound mainstays (since mid-2022 in the ESPN rankings). Bivol is No. 4 on ESPN while Beterbiev is No. 6. The ESPN BET odds show how competitive this fight will be: Bivol is -135 while Beterbiev is +110.
The match finally materialized three months before Beterbiev turned 40 (although it was scheduled to take place in June before Beterbiev underwent knee surgery). The sport’s inability to put up a fight has been the latest point of friction for a fanbase often pitted against the best against the best.
Some Undisputed Championship bouts do not feature the top two fighters in a weight class. This is the reality in a sport that boasts four titles in each division, many of which are collected at the whims and politics of boxing promoters and sanctioning bodies.
The Terence Crawford-Errol Spence Jr. welterweight bout last summer and the Oleksandr Usyk-Tyson Fury heavyweight bout in May fall into the same category as Beterbiev-Bivol: undisputed bouts that took years to make as rival promoters battled it out at the negotiating table and that featured Really the best two.
Then there are the battles like Naoya Eno-Paul Butler, Crawford-Julius Ndongo, and Eno-Marlon Tapales.
The fight was neither predictable nor competitive. In each case, the boxer’s name was a heavy favorite and he was able to close a quick deal to add the missing belts.
Whether the matches are easy or not, the opportunity to call himself the undisputed champion is the ultimate accomplishment for almost every fighter (outside of the eventual Hall of Famer).
“This is the final step towards achievement in professional boxing in all weight categories,” Bivol, 33, told ESPN last week. “We just get to see No. 1, who’s the best. For me, that means I’ve been doing my whole career right, and that I got this fight.
“And if I won this fight, I was doing everything right. Why all my life? Because I’ve been boxing all my life.”
Beterbiev (20-0, 20 KOs) echoed his compatriot’s sentiments: “It’s the main (goal) in professional boxing,” he told ESPN last week. “You know, it’s like everyone in professional boxing wants to achieve this goal.”
Roy Jones Jr. He is the last undisputed light heavyweight champion (three belt era). Since Jones relinquished one of his titles in 2000, there has not been an undisputed champion to dominate one of boxing’s most famous divisions.
Sometimes, it’s not necessary to crown an undisputed champion to know who is the best in the division. For example, Inoue was the top man at 118 pounds long before the formality of defeating Butler in 2022. Canelo Alvarez was the top super middleweight champion before he faced Caleb Plant for all the belts in 2021. Regardless, he was It matters to Canelo.
“It means a lot to me, in Mexican history, to be an undisputed champion,” Canelo told ESPN.
But in the case of Beterbiev-Bivol, Usyk-Fury and Crawford-Spence, a summit meeting was necessary to determine weight class superiority.
However, the idea of calling himself undisputed is fleeting. After all, imposing penalties on body politics usually ensures that they are short-lived. Usyk vacated his IBF title weeks after besting Fury in a heavyweight classic to pursue a rematch with Fury instead of facing his mandatory challenger. That belt now belongs to Daniel Dubois, who beat Anthony Joshua by TKO last month.
Crawford didn’t make a single defense before moving up to 154 pounds to win the August title over Israel Madrimov. Then there was Josh Taylor, who unified all four junior welterweight belts in May 2021 with a win over Jose Ramirez.
He defended the undisputed championship with a controversial victory over Jack Catterall. By the time he was next in the ring against Teofimo Lopez, there was only one belt remaining as he vacated three titles rather than face two mystery mandatory challengers.
The same is likely to apply to the winner of Saturday’s fight – with a rematch or the winner of the David Benavidez-David Morell bout potentially a possibility – but that doesn’t change the appeal of such a feat.
“It’s amazing that I’m so close to my goal, to my goal,” said Bivol (23-0, 12 KOs). “At the same time, there is also (a lot of) pressure on my shoulders. But I like that pressure… whoever wins this fight, I mean the best light heavyweight in the world today, probably in the last 10 fights.” “Years.”
The usual suspects stood in the way of this rivalry finally being fleshed out: rival promoters, competing networks and mandatory title defenses. This problem has plagued Crawford Spence and Fury Usyk.
“It takes a lot to come from a big fight like this and no one understands it,” Crawford told ESPN before the Spence fight. “They think the two fighters are on the same page, there it is. But there are a lot of lost details that go into having a huge fight that a lot of people don’t know and don’t understand. And then they blame the two fighters for not getting the fight because things weren’t right in the contract.”
But Beterbiev-Bivol also faced another problem.
Both had huge financial demands for such a high-profile showdown, yet this was never an event associated with commercial success, especially compared to the two fights mentioned above. This fight was not viewed by the promoters as one that would bring in big money at the gate nor on pay-per-view.
“These unification fights are very rare and difficult to do because there is usually conflict between promoters and networks which makes it almost impossible at times,” said Keith Connolly, who manages Edgar Berlanga, Richardson Hitchens, Alicia Baumgardner and others. “The amount of money it typically takes to conduct these fights can also be a significant hurdle to overcome.”
However, both boxers are set to earn nearly $10 million, sources told ESPN.
“Why didn’t it happen (sooner)? Because we didn’t have someone like Turki Al Sheikh and the Riyadh season who could handle all the promotions and TV stuff,” Bivol said. “I can’t see how that could happen (without Al Sheikh). How Top Rank could do a deal with Matchroom and DAZN with ESPN. I don’t want to think about it. I’m just glad it happened, thank God.”
Al Sheikh, head of the General Entertainment Authority in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has played an active role in presenting major fights since entering the space last October with Tyson Fury-Francis Ngannou. Last month, Alal Al-Sheikh was named the most influential person in combat sports on ESPN.
The policy referred to by Bivol will lead to an unusual broadcast arrangement on Saturday, showing how difficult it will be to complete this deal without Allal Sheikh’s involvement.
Beterbiev was promoted by Top Rank, which has an exclusive media rights deal with ESPN, so the main event will be broadcast on ESPN+ (6 p.m. ET). Meanwhile, the rest of the undercard will be broadcast on DAZN, which has a partnership with Matchroom, Bivol’s promoter.
Without someone like Alalsheikh to broker the deal and organize the fight, the machinations of the bout were left to promoters Bob Arum and Eddie Hearn, who spoke sporadically over the years but were unable to make the fight happen.
Fighting started It is about to come to fruition in the spring of 2022 as it has been discussed to take place in St. Petersburg, Russia, where Bivol lives (Beterbiev resides in Montreal, where he often fights).
But then, the opportunity to fight Canelo Alvarez — and the high paychecks it would bring in his career — came to Bivol. He also benefited from an upset win over Canelo, boxing’s premier star. Bivol’s smooth boxing was followed by a dominant victory over Gilberto Ramirez to win ESPN’s 2022 Fighter of the Year award.
After that, Bivol returned to a routine title defense as fans wondered when — and if — they would see him fight Beterbiev, who has continued to rack up competition, most recently former champion Callum Smith in January.
“If (Beterbiev) hits you, that’s going to be a problem, I don’t care who you are,” Jones said earlier this year on ESPN+’s “State of Boxing.” “…But if Bivol is allowed to rest, it could be a problem for him because Bivol has really good feet. You have a classic fight: classic boxer versus classic boxer. …Those are the types of fights we like to see.”
After he was forced to withdraw from the match last May, Beterbiev admitted that he was “worried” that we would never see that. It is common in boxing for a fight to be postponed until it is never rescheduled. Adding to the uncertainty: Bivol proceeded to defend the title on June 1 against Malik Zanad. An annoying loss or worse, an injury, and the match will go by the wayside.
Instead, Bivol qualified via sixth-round TKO, his first win inside that distance since March 2018.
“Today, this is probably the (most coveted) fight in boxing,” Bivol said. “People have wanted this fight for many years, and a lot of people are saying this is the most 50-50 fight and style fight in boxing. … Historic.”
When he makes his walk into the ring on Saturday in Riyadh, Bivol will take the final step into the boxing arena as he looks to take that proverbial final step in boxing’s long and arduous journey. If Bivol can neutralize Beterbiev’s power, end his streak of 20 knockouts in 20 fights and strap all four belts around his body, “I’ll say yeah, I’ve done everything right my whole life.”
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