Broadcaster Tim Bradley feels Dmitri Bivol won’t be able to run from Artur Beterbiev all night without eventually tiring and getting caught on Saturday night. He advises making it ugly by holding Beterbiev to shut down his offense.
Bradley says it’s important that Bivol (23-0, 12 KOs) “tie down” Beterbiev to neutralize his offense. He wants Bivol to move, strike and grab Beterbiev in a clinch whenever he gets close. In other words, Bradley recommends that Bivol use the punch-and-grab technique that many finesse level fighters use.
It won’t make fans happy that they tune in to watch the Beterbiev-Bivol fight in high numbers because they want to be entertained and not see one fighter make it a boring fight because he’s afraid of getting knocked out.
Bivol is six years younger than 39-year-old IBF, WBC and WBO light heavyweight champion Beterbiev (20-0, 20 KOs), and he is not coming off knee surgery. Why would Bivol have to make the fight ugly by tying Beterbiev up all night?
What will His Excellency Turki Alalshikh think of Bivol if he sees him hold on and run rather than fight Beterbiev? If you’re Bivol, it’s not a good idea to follow Bradley’s advice to neutralize Beterbiev’s offense. Those types of fighters are a dime a dozen, and nobody wants to watch them, especially on PPV.
Bradley: Don’t let Beterbiev work
“Bivol can’t move and run away from Beterbiev all night because he’s going to be on you consistently,” Tim Bradley told the Sean Zittel channel over Dmitri Bivol who couldn’t stay on the move for 12 rounds without being caught by Artur Beterbiev.
Ideally, Bivol shouldn’t be moving all night anyway, because if he’s as good as many fans and oddsmakers think he is, he should be able to overwhelm Beterbiev. He is younger, faster and is the better combination puncher than Beterbiev. That should be enough.
“I think what Bivol will eventually have to do is tie him up,” Bradley said. “The tie-up is part of boxing. So, if you tie up the man and do not allow him to workyou stop his forward momentum. Bivol knows how to do it. Another thing that Bivol knows how to do is that he actually knows how to throttle.”
Fans expect a lot more from the Beterbiev-Bivol fight than a boring affair where one guy resorts to a clinch to save his skin.
If Bivol wants to be popular in the US and worldwide, he needs to ignore what Bradley is saying because he sounds like he is trying to turns him into Frankenstein’s monster version of Shakur Stevenson. It’s no skin off Bradley’s teeth if Bivol is booed out of the arena on Saturday night for excessive clinching.
“I think Bivol’s ring IQ, straight shots to the target, and his distance control,” Bradley said. “I think that will make the difference in this fight. The queues are a concern for me. Bivol, sometimes, he languishes against the ropes. He did it against Canelo. He was easily backed against the ropes against Canelo.”
Bivol lies on the ropes when he gets tired, and that is a product of all the moving he does. It’s hard for light heavyweights to use the kind of movement Bivol uses without resting against the ropes.
One solution to that is to just stop moving so much, but Bivol can’t do that because his chin is fragile, and he can’t punch. If Bivol didn’t move as much as he did, he would be knocked out for not having a good set of whiskers and never will. The only thing Bivol can do is make sure he doesn’t rest too long against the ropes on Saturday night because Beterbiev will light him up like a Christmas tree if he does.
“At the end of the first lap he was next to those ropes. Canelo was able to land some killer punches,” Bradley said. “He cannot afford to do that against a deadly puncher like Beterbiev. Everyone says Bivol can’t punch. stop it When you have timing and precision like Bivol has, he can put you on your back.”
It sounds like Bradley hasn’t done his research, as Bivol has only knocked out one of his last ten opponents, Malik Zinad. Bivol has no power, and if he did, he’d have a lot more knockouts on his resume than 12.
“Even Beterbiev. He can put him on his back because Beterbiev comes forward and his previous momentum as he jumps out; if he gets hit hard by a few shots from Bivol, he can get hurt. “Bivol is technically better because he has his feet together with his hands,” said Bradley.
“I don’t know. Eddie talks, but he’s a little heavier than me. He is in a different category. He needs to make weight and talk,” Beterbiev said about Bivol’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, who tried to anger him during today’s final press conference.
