Dmitry Bivol believes he has the power to knock out undisputed light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev in their rematch on February 22 in Riyadh.
It would make for an interesting fight should Bivol choose to fight more aggressively in the rematch, as he mostly lasted the last seven rounds in his loss to Beterbiev two months ago on October 12 in Riyadh. Therefore, the judges gave Artur the victory. It looked like Bivol was trying to get a cheap win by doing the bare minimum.
Bivol is not a big puncher and could put himself in danger if he tries to go for a knockout against Betrbiev, who is superior to him in the power and toughness department. Dmitry is more of a fitness fighter who uses his boxing skills to win fights. He tried that approach against Beterbiev, but wilted when attacked.
Bivol’s new approach
Former WBA 175-lb champion Bivol needs to change his fighting style 100% to knock out Beterbiev. Matchroom promoted Dmitry was too defensive and showed no desire to stand up and engage with Beterbiev.
Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) says he is studying the video of his 12-round majority decision loss to Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs) from Oct. 12 and looking for areas where he can improve for the rematch in 75 days. The scores were 115-113, 116-112 for Betterbiev and 114-114.
“I try not to pay attention to what people say. I’m trying to pay attention to what I feel after the fight and what I need to do,” Dmitry Bivol told Secondsout about how he’s brushing off fans’ comments as he heads into his February 22 rematch with Artur Beterbiev.
“Of course I felt I had enough strength. We have a saying: ‘Even a stick (gun) can shoot once a year.’
“It makes you weaker if you find some excuses. He wants to fight him,” Bivol said of Terence Crawford wanting to fight Canelo Alvarez.
It’s hard to take Bivol seriously with his talk of believing he can knock Beterbiev out because he looked too scared to do anything but survive once Artur ramped up his attack into full gear after the fifth round.
Conquering doubt
Bivol had a look in his eyes of a person being pursued an angry bearand he had no fight in him. It was pure terror. To even win the rematch by decision, Bivol must be willing to risk getting knocked out by standing and engaging Beterbiev, as he failed to do last time .
Additionally, we saw the same thing from Dmitri when he fought Lyndon Arthur last year on December 23rd. Bivol was hurt by a hard body shot from Arthur in the eighth and was on the run from that point on. When Dmitri is hit hard, he gives up the fight and looks nothing like a world-class fighter.
What was hilarious and offensive was how Bivol’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, complained about the decision afterwards, feeling that Dmitry had won. Hearn chose not to take the high road by being gracious in defeat and ranting about the score.
He should have admitted that Bivol gave the fight away by running from rounds six to twelve. Of course, if Hearn confessed that Bivol showed no heart under the heat of the fight, there would be no point in a rematch.
Hopefully the Beterbiev-Bivol rematch will close the chapter in this rivalry as it will be more entertaining for the fans to see Beterbiev fight the winner of the February 1st fight between David Benavidez and David Morrell. These two have much more fan-friendly styles than Bivol, who has a Shakur-like style.
