Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev will finally face off for all four light heavyweight championships on Saturday night at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. They headline 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. WBA titlist Dmitry Bivol is no slouch, coming in at 23-0 with twelve knockout wins. Both light heavyweight champions are in the top ten of any reliable pound-for-pound ranking.
This fight was supposed to take place in May, but Artur Beterbiev suffered a torn meniscus during training. For fighters, this is a dream match: a boxer, Bivol, against a puncher, Beterbiev. Artur Beterbiev was an irresistible force in the ring, with his smooth skills and heavy hands stopping all spectators. 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 see this as a typical 50-50 fight.
Despite the stylistic differences between the two fighters, there won’t be a massive size difference on Saturday night. Bivol is six feet tall, with a reach of 72 inches, and Beterbiev stands 5 feet, 11 ½ inches tall, with a reach of 73 inches.
Bivol and Beterbiev themselves are not complete strangers. The two were amateur teammates when they boxed on the Russian national team, although they were in different weight categories. “I remember him from the national team, but we have never been friends,” Beterbiev said.
Neither man is currently fighting under the banner of Russia, even though both have ties to the country. Dmitri Bivol was born in Kyrgyzstan, but his family moved to St. Petersburg when Bivol was in elementary 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 as soon as he turned professional, he moved to Montreal.
Artur Beterbiev recently discussed his strategy for the fight. You don’t have 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 told a press conference. “At the same time, we don’t think about a knockout, it’s not the most important thing in our team.”
In the run-up to the fight, the big drama was not between Beterbiev and Bivol. Promoter Eddie Hearn has criticized Artur Beterbiev for not helping promote the big fight. “At the first press, Beterbiev said about three words. I found it quite arrogant because you’re flying him over, and his team (…) And it’s like, wait a minute, you’re being paid an absolute fortune, you’ve got the entire world media here, you owe us ‘ a little more than that. He couldn’t care less. And in a way I respect that, but in a way I think it’s a little disrespectful. I don’t expect him to start rolling around with Bivol here tonight, but you are a monster, you have your part to play in this fight, you are receiving a large amount of money, let’s play the game a bit.”
While I understand where Eddie Hearn is coming from, I don’t buy into his complaining. Artur Beterbiev had twenty fights and won twenty fights by knockout. Beterbiev is doing something right to prepare for these fights; why should he want to mess with it? Eddie Hearn should be able to promote a massive event with a gigantic budget, regardless of whether or not either fighter chooses to engage with the media. Hearn wants Beterbiev to help him do his job, but is Hearn going to step into the ring at any point and punish Beterbiev? Honestly, Eddie Hearn makes a ton of money promoting a fight he’s not in.
In 2022, before his win over Zurdo Ramirez, Bivol was asked about a rematch with Canelo Alvarez. “Money is good, but legacy, I think, is better. I like money too. Everyone loves money. But money is not the main thing on my mind when I came to boxing. When I box, I want to make history. If I had thought about money, I would never have been here,” said Bivol. Fortunately, Saudi royal Turki Alalshikh can take care of these concerns. Bivol and Betervbiev will reportedly take home around $10 million each.
Bivol said defeating Beterbiev to become the undisputed lightweight champion would be more significant than beating Canelo Alvarez. “It’s not about personality; it’s about belt. Of course, fighting for the belt is much more meaningful to me, to be marked in history. That’s a lot. It is of course much more significant.”
But enough money and legacy talk, how will the battle go? Has Beterbiev fully recovered from his torn 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 shots to make Beterbiev respect his punching power? Will Beterbiev have an answer to the power jab that the Bivol used 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-combat adversity in a massive battle like this?
These are just some of the questions that fighters have wondered and debated as the thought of a Dmitri Bivol vs. Artur Beterbiev match has excited boxing fans over the years. Come tomorrow, the time for questions is over. These two great champions will eventually collide.
