Should be a good barn burner of a fight. Probably shouldn't ask but who you got? Artur Beterbiev Hopes To Finalize Joe Smith Unification in Coming Days This content is protected BY [url]******* STAFF[/url] Published Sun Jul 11, 2021, 08:08 PM EDT [url]15 comments[/url] WBC and IBF light heavyweight world champion Artur Beterbiev of Russia is expecting the contract for his fight with WBO beltholder Joe Smith to be signed in the coming days. World Boxing Council President Mauricio Sulaiman was notified that their highly anticipated light heavyweight unification is scheduled for September 18 in New York. Beterbiev, who wants to unify the entire weight class, is very motivated to capture another world title. "The fight with Smith on September 18 has not yet been confirmed. I'm waiting for the contract. I think that issue will be resolved in the coming days. Of course I would like to have this fight, because after all Smith has the belt. In general, I don't care who I go up against. The main thing is to win the belt," said Beterbiev to Ildar Satdinov. Smith looked less than spectacular in his last fight back in April, when he secured a twelve round majority decision over Maxim Vlasov to capture the WBO title. Beterbiev is certainly not overlooking Smith's abilities in the ring. "I don't have the thought process that Smith has no chance in a fight with me. Any boxer has a chance of winning. Smith is not an ordinary fighter, he is experienced, he boxed with strong opponents, showed good boxing," Beterbiev said. For his part, Beterbiev saw action back in March. At the Ice Palace in Moscow, he put away German contender Adam Dienes in the tenth round of action. Beterbiev has a perfect record with 16 wins and all of them have come inside the distance. On the account of Smith, there are 27 wins (21 of them by way of knockout) with three defeats.
Well this was a fight the Smith people wanted over the Bivol fight as they thought they had a better chance of winning.
I think if Beterbiev had met Smith when Fonfara did, and not respected his power, Smith might have had a chance to land a sneaky bomb and get the upset. But Beter will be wary of the power and I think Smith might be badly beaten up.
I think Beterbiev is on the decline. He didn't look good in his last fight after a bout with Covid. He looked off-balance in the Deines fight. I didn't give Smith much of a chance after Beterbiev demolished Gvozdyk, but that's almost 2 years ago. I think Smith can pull off an upset if this fight happens in 2022.
Beterbiev-Smith and Bivol-Ramirez should be next. Winner fights for undisputed early next year. Would make the winner vs Canelo a mega fight next year sometime.
You wish. Smith barely scraped by his last opponent. Beterbiev knocks Smith's head off his shoulders.
Great fight and one that on paper should and very likely will be a barn burner. Beterbiev looked really flat last time out and I hope it was due to the Covid and the long layoff and not because he's on the slide. It's probably a combination of all three. That being said, Smith looked very lucky to get the nod over Vlasov last time out albeit to be fair it was a horrible style match up for him and Vlasov is a damned good fighter in his own right.
I think Beterbiev respect and doesn't undervalue his opponents. In ams he had enough high level opponents already to learn in ams how to not underestimate an opponent: Usyk 2X, Hunter, Kovalev, from less well known in this forum enough notable opponents were Makarenko ( looks that he fought vs Bet 2X in ams ) : 2X World championship Gold medalist, 1X World Cup gold, euro 2X Gold, 1X Bronze : very good am boxer, Mekhonstsev : Olympic Gold medalist, World Championship 1X Gold, 1X Bronze, 2X euro gold and looks that he had turned in a pro, now is 13-0-1 as a pro. Whey you have such kind of opponents you learn how not to underestimate guy in front of you.
