Dmitrii Yurievich Bivol vs. Artur Asilbekovich Beterbiev & Jai Opetaia vs. Jack Massey RBR.

The judges need to get out of the country ASAP

 

Different opponent, sure, but just looking at how Bivol performed, his fitness levels, his stamina, etc. Which was the better performance? Has Bivol slowed down? I'm not taking anything away from Beterbiev, certainly Beterbiev pushed Bivol harder than Canelo did, wore him down more. Though Canelo landed the more flashy eye catching shots on Bivol. Beterbiev pounded him with thudding shots that hit mostly gloves. Canelo managed to land better shots on Bivol in the early rounds, where as Beterbiev did the most of his damage in the later rounds.

 

Bivol has been my #1 favorite fighter of the past several years & I expected him to win this fight outright, but his performance tonight was a major disappointment in my eyes. He looked jittery from the opening bell, & although he often landed the cleaner, flashier flurries, he failed to sustain a consistent offense & his flurries became increasingly too few or far between as the fight progressed.

On the flipside, Beter proved to me that he's 1 of the most deceiving fighters in recent memory. He doesn't appear to do anything particularly flashy or fancy, but he made his strength & power felt against even 1 of the classiest boxers in the sport & effectively shut him down in the late rounds. Ultimately I felt there were far too many close/indecisive rounds to argue w/ a decision either way.

 

lol Turki doesn't agree with Allah. That's a bit surprising. I do appreciate Turki having the guts to speak his mind, disagreeing with the decision in his own country.

 

I had him 6-3 up after 9. Like most scorers.

 

Turki does know **** about boxing. Good for him.

 

I think it wasn't a matter of stamina, but Bivol becomin' more and more gunshy as Artur's corner suggested to KO him in order to avoid any doubts on the scorecards and with that advice, Artur pressure became more and more prominent winning him the championship rounds. That's what idk how Bivol will deal with in the rematch.
And even by landing cleaner shots, trying to bother his lead hand like he always does, Canelo simply doesn't hurt like Beter or has the firepower to keep light-heavies away from him.

 

Eddie Hearn fighters aren't winning many in riyadh season.

 

Agree 100%. Bivol was doing a lot more movement than usual. But it was quite good and effective and Bivol was timing him well when they did exchange. When Bivol did open up he landed some great combos which had to win him many rounds. But maybe the judges were seeing him on the backfoot too much, not engaging, and Artur looking to make the fight.

It did seem like Bivol was going to win when they were about to announce the scores, with the 116-112 especially, but it wasn't to be. I agree that a draw would have been very fair here. But imagine if an Undisputed title fight was a draw. Fans would be upset at that simply because it was a draw. It probably would have been better for a rematch if Bivol won, because then it would force Artur to take more risks and press the action more. Then again now it's Bivol that has to do more in the rematch which could put him in danger. We'll see.

 

No, that counts for him. Punching and not landing is better than not punching at all.

 

Canelo vs Berlanga was a mismatch - enoyable? maybe, but it wasn't a patch on this fight for my entertainment value. But then I LOVE tactical chess matches. This actually had more action than I expected tbh, I think Bivol actually overcommitted a couple of times that cost him as it seemed to wake Artur up each time

 

I'm more interested in AB fighting Jai.

 

It's funny you mentioned that because I legit thought that during the fight. Bivol didn't seem as sharp as he normally does. His punches IMO didn't look like they had the same speed. There were times in the fight where it would show but not anywhere near as much as the past. So to answer your question? Maybe? Hard to say based on one fight. I will say Bivol surprised me with his lateral movement. He is usually a guy who uses more in and out movement. Maybe he felt he couldn't do that in this fight and his stamind suffered because of it. He didn't use anywhere near as much lateral movement when he fought Canelo. But at the same time, maybe Artur gets to him faster if he didn't. A rematch is intriguing to me to see how each fighter approaches it.