I thought i would be in the minority in picking Kovalev. If people are favouring Krusher over Bivol and many people see Bivol-Beterbiev as a 50-50 fight, do people think that Kov is a stylistically harder fight for Bivol than Beterbiev?
It's a very old and past prime Beterbiev, that's why it's 50-50. Prime Kovalev should beat this Beterbiev, at their peaks it would be a brutal, difficult fight to pick. I need to think about the stylistic match-ups more, but for me the main difference is size and power. Kovalev and Beterbiev are big 175lbers and Bivol is nearly 1 division smaller. So even though I think Bivol is at a similar p4p level I can't pick him against prime versions of either.
Kovalev beats him, probably KO's him. Everyone is high on Bivol because he UD's a bunch of second-tier guys and beat a MW called Canelo. They've forgotten what Kovalev used to do and what he did to Ward in the first fight even. Kovalev was easily as good of a pure boxer as Bivol, if not better, and then also has a massive power advantage. Look what Kovalev did to Cleverly as soon as he landed properly and Cleverly was big and had a good chin, never hurt until then. Fought Bellew etc. Bivol is going to play boxy box for a while, land some shots that won't bother Kovalev at all, and then Kovalev is going to land clean on his head and send him down to the canvas. Bivol is going to get up, not know where he is, then Kovalev is going to finish him.
I'll go with The Krusher by stoppage before 10. That said, Bivol might be able to fight a backfoot fight and eke out a close decision. 65/35
Bivol. I think Bivol would also beat Ward convincingly enough that it would be tougher to rob him of a decision like they did to Kovalev. This is just my personal opinion obviously; Kovalev was a great fighter in his prime so definitely not trying to take anything away from him.