In the highly anticipated Riyadh Season, winner-take-all bout that took place at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Artur Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs) faced his arch-rival Dmitri Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) pointed out. ) and the first undisputed light heavyweight world champion of the four-belt era.
The fight didn’t have the fireworks that fans might have expected to see, but the fight was a solid technical contest. During the build up to the undisputed fight, fight fans and boxing pundits labeled this fight as a 50/50 fight.
In the opening round of the undisputed light heavyweight championship fight, Bivol started the match by working his jab. Beterbiev didn’t throw many punches, but he pressed forward and tried to get himself in the right range to unleash his offense.
In the second round, Bivol continued to use the jab and side movement. At the start of the third round, Beterbiev landed a solid straight right hand, but Bivol responded by connecting with a sharp one-two combination.
Bivol set the pace of the fifth round with his movement and his counter punches. Beterbiev closed out the fifth round by applying pressure and landing solid punches. For the first five rounds, Beterbiev hustled a lot, but in round 6 he experienced success landing punches to the body.
Early in the 7th round, Bivol landed a quick counter right hand. In the final minute of the same round, Bivol connected with a flurry of punches, then Beterbiev answered by pressing forward and landing solid punches of his own.
Bivol’s lateral movement decreased in the eighth round and this gave Beterbiev the opportunity to fight from the front foot and land a series of hard single shots. Bivol started to hold and move in the ninth as he controlled the majority of the round.
In the championship rounds, Artur Beterbiev showed a sense of urgency by constantly pushing forward and staying in attack mode. At the end of the 12-round contest, one judge scored the bout 114-114, but that score was overturned by the other two judges who scored the bout 115-113 and 116-112 in favor of Artur Beterbiev .
Artur Beterbiev was grateful for the victory, but he admitted he was not satisfied with his performance in the ring. Beterbiev entered the October 12th bout with a perfect knockout ratio, but Bivol forced him to go the distance for the first time in his professional career.
Checking the temperature on social media, a large percentage of the boxing community believes Dmitry Bivol was the victim of a robbery. During the championship match, Bivol showed excellent ring generalship with his lateral movement, his use of angles and his sharp counterpunch.
The one thing that probably hurt Bivol with this set of judges is the fact that he boxed off the back foot for most of the match while Beterbiev constantly pushed forward. Dmitry Bivol was the boxer who landed the cleaner punches, but the judges were clearly swayed by the visual of Artur Beterbiev being consistently aggressive.
As of now, Artur Beterbiev is the new undisputed light heavyweight world champion. Winning the fight on Saturday night wasn’t a horrible decision to beat Beterbiev, but it’s a decision that certainly provides a reasonable reason for a Beterbiev vs. Bivol rematch.
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