Craig Richards feels that Artur Beterbiev’s concealment of his strength was key to his victory over Dmitry Bivol last Saturday night. Light heavyweight contender Richards helped the unified 175-lb champion Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs) prepare for the fight against WBA champion Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) through sparring.
Richards says Beterbiev uses much weaker “throwaway” shots to keep his opponents tense, and then he will charge up with one of his heavy punches. Because of Beterbiev’s power, his opponents cannot relax, and Richard noticed that this happened with Bivol. He was not relaxed, and he never knew when Beterbiev would throw one of his power shots.
In the later rounds, from 9 to 12, Beterbiev did not let up with his pressure and wore down Bivol as he was forced to move non-stop. He could not stand in front of Beterbiev because he threw too many punches.
Even though Bivol blocked many of the shots, the concussion from the blows through his gloves got into his head. Bivol looked semi-stunned from rounds 7-12 and was ineffective aside from throwing poor takedowns. Beterbiev landed all the harder punches.
“Bivol worked well behind his back in the first two to three rounds, and he had a lot of success. When he stopped doing that and started moving a lot and allowed Beterbiev to close the distance on him, Beterbiev was allowed to bully him a little bit and have more success,” Craig Richards said. Second saltand discusses his thoughts on last Saturday night’s clash between light heavyweight champions Artur Beterbiev and Dmitri Bivol.
What Richards doesn’t mention is that Beterbiev didn’t start applying pressure until the fifth round, and when he did, Bivol was forced to move. His jab was no longer effective as Beterbiev was dodging it and getting in close and landing hard punches. Bivol couldn’t handle the force, so he started running. It was a simple struggle to understand. Once Beterbiev ramped up his offense, it was a one-sided game with him coming forward and Bivol on one long retreat. He gave up.
“He’s very smart in that some of his shots may not have a lot behind them, but if you know he can hit, it will keep somebody tight,” Richards said of Beterbiev. “So, he might not throw a heavy shot, but you never know when it’s coming. You know he can hit, so you automatically get (tense) for whatever he throws. He can kind of manipulate the rounds by throwing throwaway shots.
“I thought if Bivol could relax more in front of him and not fall for some of those tricks, I felt he would have a lot of success. I felt that he did in some rounds. He slipped and stood in front of him and finished the jab, but Beterbiev is very smart.
“He kept throwing that throwaway pitch, and then he threw a hard shot. Bivol was like, ‘Oh no, now I don’t know when the hard shots are coming.’ So, he (Beterbiev) mixes his power pretty well. He keeps up the pressure, and when he gets going, he gets going,” Richards said of Beterbiev.
It would have been interesting to see how Bivol would have done had he followed Richard’s advice by staying relaxed and facing Beterbiev. I don’t think it would have ended well for Bivol, but it would have been interesting to see if he could have stood in the pocket instead of surrendering like he did.
The way Bivol gave up in the end made him look weak. If Bivol is going to fight like this in the rematch, His Honor should save his money and fight someone like Joshua Buatsi, David Morrell or David Benavidez, because the fans will not get their money’s worth.
