Dmitry Bivol’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, sounded like a classic example of a sore loser after his 12-round majority decision defeat against unified light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev last Saturday night in Riyadh. He was having difficulty understanding what had happened to his fighter Bivol, who crumbled under the pressure from hard-hitting Beterbiev in their clash.
Matchroom boss Hearn had Bivol winning 8-4 in mind and was in shock at seeing him lose. It looked obvious what had happened. Once Bivol started getting hit hard by Beterbiev in the seventh, he stopped fighting and ran the last five rounds and lost. Bivol was scared and in distress.
Any judge could see that Bivol had mentally given up. Instead of Hearn crying about the judge who scored it 116-112, he should praise him because he did a great job scoring it.
Beterbiev Ruined the Big Canelo Plans for Bivol
Hearn says he wants the judge who scored the fight 116-112 for Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs) never to work another fight. Obviously, Bivol’s loss messes up Hearn’s hopes for a fight against Canelo Alvarez that would have been in play if he’d won.
The Canelo-Bivol rematch would have raked in the sweet dough, bringing in untold riches. Instead, Bivol has his first loss, and his career looks shaky, so he needs to try to avenge the loss. That doesn’t look good.
A rematch could be far worse for Bivol, with him likely getting knocked out by Beterbiev. If Bivol loses again to Beterbiev, he’ll be a useless ballast for Hearn, who won’t be able to do much with him other than use him as a B-player to fight David Benavidez, David Morrell, or Joshua Buatsi.
Interestingly, the 116-112 score that Hearn was railing about was the same score that many fans on social media had it for Beterbiev, who outworked a tired-looking and hurt Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) in the last half of the action last night at the Kingdom Arena.
“How can we forget what just happened in the ring? Do we want to forget about in one of the biggest fights of our generation and in the most important fight of Bivol’s life, you give him four rounds? It’s absolutely disgusting,” said Eddie Hearn to Matchroom Boxing, talking about the judge that scored Beterbiev vs. Bivol fight 116-112 for Artur.
Hearn should look at Bivol to see if he wants to blame anyone because he gave up the ship after the seventh round and was nowhere to be seen in the championship rounds. Whatever fight that Bivol had in him, it was gone at the midpoint.
The 33-year-old Bivol abandoned the ship and let Beterbiev board and take command. Bivol looked like he wanted no part in fighting Beterbiev after getting hit with a barrage of thudding headshots in the mid-rounds. Bivol looked physically older than Beterbiev in the championship rounds, and showed no heart.
“They knew Artur Beterbiev had lost this fight,” said Hearn about Beterbiev’s corner. “Top Rank knew Beterbiev had lost this fight. Then, the word got around that Artur Beterbiev had won a majority decision. I’m absolutely baffled and disgusted by the scorecard of 116-112. 115-113, I don’t like it,” said Hearn.
What on Earth is Hearn blabbering about? Top Rank didn’t think Beterbiev had lost. They knew that he’d done his job, hit Bivol with some mammoth shots that put him on the run and won going away. Hearn can’t accept that the better man beat his fighter Bivol.
“8-4 to Dmitry Bivol,” Hearn said about how he scored the fight, giving his fighter Bivol the win by a round margin of 116-112 over Beterbiev. “He [Bivol] boxed beautifully in there tonight. I don’t want to disrespect Beterbiev, but Bivol should be the undisputed champion tonight, and that judge should never work again,” said Hearn about the judge scoring 8-4 for Beterbiev.
“Four rounds of a fight of this magnitude is disgusting. I’m not saying it was a runaway victory or a landslide for Dmitry Bivol. No one had Artur Beterbiev winning that fight. I didn’t even hear a draw. Beterbiev was deflated. They knew they lost the fight.
“It was such a beautiful fight to watch. Dmitry was so smart. He got hurt a couple of times. He hurt Beterbiev a couple of times. He took so much on the gloves. All the marking around here [on Bivol’s face]. You could see that it was from the gauze on his tape.
“He just boxed a beautiful fight in a tough-fought fight. When you get an opportunity like that and box that way and not get the decision, it really hurts,” said Hearn.
I don’t know how Hearn can keep a straight face while banging on about how Bivol “boxed a beautiful fight” when he was running from Beterbiev after tasting his power in the seventh round.
