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

Beterbiev also said that his corner say he needs a KO during every fight.

 

A question for everyone, it was clear that bivol completely took round ten off, and threw practically nothing. Beterbiev was the only one who did anything in that round.
Is that enough to give him a 10-8, he didn’t dominate bivol in terms of damage but bivol did nothing at all.
Serious question, so is that enough and did anyone give him a 10-8

 

There was a lot of backward and side to side movement from Bivol. I wouldn't call it running, but he definitely was consistently moving away from AB throughout. That perhaps played into the minds of the judges, and certainly could be used to score close rounds to AB based on Ring Generalship and Effective Aggression, especially with so much few clean punching from either fighter.

The one knock of Bivol is his body language at times doesn't instill confidence. He's a great counter puncher, has great footwork, he has great boxing, and a lot of good attributes. But lets put it this way, Bivol at times doesn't make it all flow together effortlessly in that way that he would need to, to clearly come across as though he's in total control, i.e. ring generalship. And I think that was the difference tonight.

 

Bivol was hurt in 11, he hid it well. He was also grabbing arms and pushing Beterbiev's head down to avoid engaging during the last 2-3 rounds in particular.

 

He said that, but I think his corner pretty clearly did think he was losing and needed to step it up and press the action more. And he certainly got that message and did that in the late rounds.

 

Not 10-8. I remembered clearly the commentators saying round 10 was a Bivol round and thinking, these guys are ruining boxing. Fairly clear Beterbiev round.

 

Bivol was also oddly even pressing forward repeatedly right into AB with his arms up, as if to say "look I'm walking forward, i'm not running away any more" even though his gloves were up.

 

Because he does. He isn't known for putting on a boxing clinic. He is known for losing rnds and putting the other guy to sleep late.

 

I predicted before the fight that the difference would be the power. And I was correct. When Beterbiev landed he hurt Bivol. When Bivol landed Beterbiev walked through it.

 

That could also be true.

 

OK but even before Compubox released its stats, from memory it did seem like Round 11 was a far more dominant round for AB than Round 10. And the Compubox #s just so happen to back that view.

 

He landed a good amount of flush shots on Beterbiev and his defence was solid (defence also being a scoring criteria)

 

No they actually said that bivol was coming on strong or something but they clearly meant Beterbiev, I noticed that too

 

On that point, it's true. Beterbiev power did seem to wear Bivol down. But on the other hand, his power never really seemed to cause Bivol to be in major trouble at any point, despite the fact that some predicted a KO. Bivol was never rocked or anything, he never really grimaced in paint to any Beterbiev punch, even the body shots. So I think that Bivol showed he is a good chin and good punch resistance generally, but I do think that he was worn down by the thudding punches even though most hit gloves. Perhaps it was the body shots that really affected Bivol. The body shots may have been the biggest difference in the fight. Those body shots were probably what really slowed Bivol down even though most of them weren't really that noticeable while watching it.

 

He was bothered enough by the power that he was going backwards the entire fight.