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 on social media today. Turki uploaded a photo of him, Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs), and Bivol on his X. Turki is holding a beautiful painting of Beterbiev & Bivol in the photo.
Beterbiev looked like he wasn’t in a fight, showing no 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 big in the photo, almost as if he was wearing gloves. That might explain why his punches are so strong. They look like sledgehammers.
Bivol came up short on the scorecards and lost 114-114, 115-113 and 116-112. The fight was lost when Beterbiev transformed himself into Superman, and went into hyper mode in the second half to beat Bivol around the ring, forcing him to move to avoid being knocked out. After the fight, Bivol’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, raved about his plans for a mega-fight between Dmitry and Canelo Alvarez.
Hearn expressed that Bivol should have won, but he received very little sympathy from fans, who saw him as in denial. Bivol still has an outside shot at getting a Canelo mega-money fight, but he needs to beat Beterbiev to get that honor.
“I thought Artur came in quite a bit, and some of the laps were big, big laps. He didn’t do anything, and Artur was all over him and I think it swung a lot in our favor,” John Scully, the coach of Artur Beterbiev, told Boxing King Mediaon why they got the win with the judges over Dmitri Bivol.
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🥊❤️🔥💪🏻 pic.twitter.com/0z56acpfSZ
— TURKI ALALSHIKH (@Turki_alalshikh) 13 October 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,” Scully said when asked how surprised he was that Bivol made it the full 12 rounds without getting knocked out.
“He obviously caught some big shots, and he took a good hit,” Scully said of Bivol with a swollen left eye. “He caught some solid shots. There were a few times 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.
“In a fight like this 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 as I say. Dmitri is world class. I wouldn’t mind seeing a rematch.
“Now that they know each other, a reunion would be even better,” Scully said.
