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An unmarked, newly minted undisputed light heavyweight champion, Artur Beterbiev, stood side-by-side with His Excellency Turki Alalshikh and former WBA belt-holder Dmitry Bivol in a post today on social media. Turki uploaded a photo of him, Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs), and Bivol on his X. Turki is holding a beautiful painting of Beterbiev and Bivol in the photo.
Beterbiev looked like he hadn’t been in a fight, showing any signs of bruising on his face from his 12-round majority decision win over Bivol last Saturday night at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh. Beterbiev’s fists looked huge in the photo, almost like he wore gloves. That might explain why his punches are so strong. They resemble two sledgehammers.
Bivol fell short on the scorecards, losing by 114-114, 115-113 and 116-112. The fight was lost when Beterbiev transformed himself into Superman, going into hyper mode in the second half to batter Bivol around the ring, forcing him to move to keep from getting knocked out. After the fight, Bivol’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, was hopping mad, having seen his plans for a mega-fight between Dmitry and Canelo Alvarez dashed.
Hearn vented that Bivol should have won, but he received very little sympathy from fans, who saw him as in denial. Bivol still has an outside chance of getting a Canelo mega-money fight, but he’s got to beat Beterbiev to get that honor.
“I thought Artur got inside quite a bit, and some of the rounds where big, big rounds. He didn’t do anything, and Artur was all over him and I think that swayed toward us a lot,” said John Scully, the trainer for Artur Beterbiev, speaking to Boxing King Media, about why they got the win with the judges over Dmitry Bivol.
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🥊❤️🔥💪🏻 pic.twitter.com/0z56acpfSZ
— TURKI ALALSHIKH (@Turki_alalshikh) October 13, 2024
“Not at all. These guys are the best of the best in the world. You can never go into a fight like that and expect a knockout,” said Scully when asked how surprised he was that Bivol made it the full 12 rounds without getting knocked out.
Beterbiev probably could have knocked out Bivol if he had blitzed him from the first round like he’d done parts of the seventh and eighth rounds. If Beterbiev had attacked Bivol as he did in his fight against Radivoje Kalajdzic, he’d have caved in. That was vintage Beterbiev against Hotrod.
“He obviously got caught with some big shots, and he took a good punch,” said Scully about Bivol having a swollen left eye. “He caught some solid shots. There were a couple of times when I thought we had him. I really thought we had him. I thought the fight was going to be over. He looked like he was on shaky legs, but he’s a high-level fighter. So, he came through,” said Scully.
There were several rounds where Beterbiev unleashed on Bivol and had him looking in serious distress. He was taking some big headshots in those sequences and looking close to being stopped. The pro-Bivol fans who thought he won don’t remember those rounds, but there are several of them. If Beterbiev learns from this fight, he’ll knock out Bivol in the rematch.
“In a fight like that, you never know. I would always say, ‘Go for the knockout.’ I would always tell a fighter in that position to go for the knockout. I thought Artur dominated the last round. Halfway through, I thought we had a good chance of getting a knockout. But like I say. Dmitry is world-class. I wouldn’t mind seeing a rematch. Now that they know each other, a rematch would be even better,” said Scully.
Beterbiev tried to go for the knockout in the twelfth round, but Bivol repeatedly tied him up to prevent him from getting his shots off. Bivol’s constant tie-ups had a negative effect, keeping him from winning the round by throwing shots. What Bivol should have done was throw shots to win the round. However, he looked tired and had been hurt several times in the previous rounds, and he didn’t want to take chances of getting hit with a flurry of heavy shots from Beterbiev.
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