Bivins vs. Beterbiev

Who has Beterbiev beat who's nearly as good as Bivins for you to believe he'd win?

 

Bivol for one.
It’s not just the resume I’m basing my prediction off of, it’s also the eye test.

 

This is true but it was KD power not one shot KO power. The issue here is more the durablity in a long battle with Beterbiev which the fight would probably be. Charles and Lloyd Marshall both knocked Bivins down first and Bivins had to come back. Bivins scored early knockdowns over Mauriello both times, Christoforidies once and Lesnevich and all 4 fights went the distance. 3 were close and he actually lost the Christoforidis one.

Christoforides during their 3 fights never knocked Bivins down but Christoporides has a 24% KO rate. Bivins might not be featherfisted but Christoforides was. Christoforidis had his share of success against Bivins winning about 15 of the 35 rounds they fought. Bivins can't afford that against a Beterbiev.

From Feburary 1941 to February 1945 which contained Bivins duration title reigns his only stoppage wins were against the two Marshalls Lloyd and Herbert Marshall. The Lloyd one was in the 13th round. Herbert was the single worst opponent Bivins fought over this time and it took 4 KDs. The Moore win in 1945 took 6 KDs, the Beckwith one from 1947 took 4 and in those fights Bivins outweighed his opponents 15-20 pounds. Those are still very impressive wins but they were the aberration when Bivins beat a top opponent it was usually going double digit rounds.

Bivins needs to shut Beterbiev down to beat him and I do not have faith he'd be able to do that against someone who has more power than anyone mentioned above. During his streak Bivins was consistantly beating ATG LHW/HW opposition. He was not shutting them down they were winning rounds and scoring knockdowns. Beterbiev hasn't fought anyone as good as Bivins best opponents but hes more dangerous than those opponents.

 

He 1-shotted Lee Savold around that same time.

 

In the 6th round of a fight he was dominating. It was one of only 3 knockdowns Louis scored in his final 12 fights where he faced 0 200 pound opponents. Pre war Louis had that many in individual rounds semi regularly including against Buddy Baer.

Louis's power was gone. In 1941 going the distance with Louis meant a fighter had a titanium chin in 1951 it means nothing. Louis was still a fine fighter but Beterbiev is far more lethal than that version of Louis as was Marciano etc.

 

Fair enough, but you need to be more than ‘not feather fisted’ to keep an endless, mentally tough engine like Beterbiev off you, he won’t be mentally deterred because of how the punches feel, you have to actually rock someone like that to make them back up or to lower their volume.
Gvozdyk, Browne etc could punch to a decent degree, and they couldn’t land enough clean punches to deter him.
You, for one, have to have accuracy in setting up power punches and, two, have a very hard punch, you need to be able to plant your feet at the right times to set up accurate punches.
Beterbiev has this presence that makes you feel like you have to go back, but you have to have the fortitude to plant your feet at times and gamble, otherwise you’re just not gonna keep him off, Yarde tried it, had success, but ultimately came up short, but he approached it with the right game plan.
I don’t feel like Bivins would plant his feet at times and gamble to try and keep him off, that’s not really part of his arsenal, ‘boxer punching’ would be the right way to describe it.

 

I've no argument against your comments with respect to opponents. However let's remind ourselves that Beterbiev started his pro career very late due to an extensive amateur career. He was 40 vs Bivol. How good was he at 25 or 28. And how would that guy match up with Bivins.

 

At worst, Beterbiev would be in the mix with all of these guys.

At best, he’d come out near or at the top.

 

Well a 25 year old Beterbiev was an amateur , while Bivins was as seasoned a pro as possible.