Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev will finally face off on Saturday night at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for all four light heavyweight championships. They are headlining a card aptly titled IV Crown Showdown.
Beterbiev, who holds the IBF, WBO, and WBC belts, boasts a professional record of 20-0, with all twenty wins coming by knockout, making him the only champion in boxing with a 100% knockout rate. Dmitry Bivol, the WBA titlist, is no slouch, coming in at 23-0 with twelve knockout victories. Both light heavyweight champions are in the top ten of any reputable pound-for-pound ranking.
This fight was supposed to occur in May, but Artur Beterbiev suffered a ruptured meniscus during training. For fight fans, this is a dream matchup: a boxer, Bivol, facing a puncher, Beterbiev. Artur Beterbiev has been an irresistible force in the ring, with his slick skills and heavy hands stopping all comers. Dmitry Bivol is a technician in the squared circle, dominating his competition, including outboxing Canelo Alvarez. According to oddsmakers, Bivol is a slight favorite, but most observers view this as a quintessential 50-50 fight.
Despite the stylistic differences between the two fighters, there will not be a massive size disparity on Saturday night. Bivol is six feet tall, with a 72-inch reach, and Beterbiev stands five feet, 11 ½ inches tall, with a 73-inch reach.
Bivol and Beterbiev themselves are not total strangers. The two were amateur teammates when they boxed on the Russian national team, though they were in different weight categories. “I remember him from the national team, but we’ve never been friends,” Beterbiev said.
Neither man currently fights under the banner of Russia, though both have ties to the country. Dmitry Bivol was born in Kyrgyzstan, but his family moved to St. Petersburg when Bivol was in grade school. However, Bivol trains out of Joel Diaz’s gym in Indio, California. Artur Beterbiev represented Russia at the Olympics in 2008 and 2012, but once he became professional, he relocated to Montreal.
Artur Beterbiev recently discussed his strategy for the fight. You do not need to be a world-class trainer to guess what a man with twenty knockouts in twenty fights will try to do. “If I land, everyone can be knocked out,” Beterbiev said at a press conference. “At the same time, we’re not thinking about a knockout, it’s not the main thing in our team.”
In the lead-up to the fight, the big drama has not been between Beterbiev and Bivol. Promoter Eddie Hearn has criticized Artur Beterbiev for not helping promote the big battle. “At the first presser, Beterbiev said about three words. I found it quite arrogant because you’re flying him over, and his team […] And it’s like, hang on a minute, you’re getting paid an absolute fortune, you’ve got the entire world media here, you owe us a little bit more than that. He couldn’t care less. And in a way, I respect it, but in a way, I think it’s a little bit disrespectful. I’m not expecting him to come and start rolling around with Bivol here tonight, but you are a monster, you’ve got your role to play in this fight, you’re receiving a huge amount of money, let’s play the game a little bit.”
While I understand where Eddie Hearn is coming from, I am not buying into his complaining. Artur Beterbiev has had twenty fights and won twenty fights by knockout. Beterbiev is doing something right in preparing for these fights; why should he want to mess with that? Eddie Hearn should be able to promote a massive event with a gigantic budget whether or not one of the two combatants chooses to engage with the media. Hearn wants Beterbiev to help do his job, but is Hearn going to step in the ring at any point and take punishment for Beterbiev? Frankly, Eddie Hearn is making a load of money to promote a fight he is not participating in.
In 2022, before his victory over Zurdo Ramirez, Bivol was asked about a rematch with Canelo Alvarez. “Money is good, but legacy, I think, is better. I love money, too. Everybody loves money. But money is not the main thing I’m thinking about when I came to boxing. When I box, I want to make history. If I thought about money, I would never be here,” Bivol said. Luckily, Saudi Royal Turki Alalshikh can take care of those concerns. Reportedly, Bivol and Betervbiev will take home around $10 million each.
Bivol said defeating Beterbiev to become the undisputed lightweight champion would be more meaningful than beating Canelo Alvarez. “It’s not about personality; it’s about belt. Of course, fighting for the belt is much more meaningful for me, to be marked in the history. It’s a lot. Of course, it’s much more meaningful.”
But enough money and legacy talk, how will the fight go? Has Beterbiev fully recovered from his ruptured meniscus, which he suffered about six months ago? Can Beterbiev break Bivol’s will with his power, as he has done to so many before? Can Bivol land enough effective punches to make Beterbiev respect his punching power? Will Beterbiev have an answer to the power jab the Bivol utilized so effectively against Canelo Alvarez? Depending on how the fight goes, can Beterbiev box effectively against Bivol, or can Bivol land power shots on Beterbiev? How will each man respond to the inevitable in-fight adversity in a massive fight like this?
Those are just some of the questions that fight fans have been wondering about and debating as the thought of a Dmitry Bivol vs. Artur Beterbiev matchup has tantalized boxing fans over the years. Come tomorrow, the time for questions is over. These two great champions will finally collide.
