Artur Asilbekovich Beterbiev vs Dmitrii Yurievich Bivol II & Vergil Ortiz Jr vs Israil Madrimov RBR.

This one is so hard to call. On one hand Bivol has a huge youth advantage, is faster, highly skilled with elite defence, and on the other lasting the distance once is hard enough against a savage punching beast like Beterbiev, let alone twice. Can Bivol box a near perfect fight twice? He can box a near perfect one for 23.5 rounds and still get KO'd. Logic and my gut says Beterbiev given the slim odds of being able to make it to the final bell against him twice but it's too close to call. It's a true 50-50

 

Im not really sold that this loss can be hung on being out of shape and no training. You should be able to go 6 minutes with Parker no matter if youve been training or not, if you are world level.

It would have been different if this happened later in the fight, but it happening so early had me suspecting this is more revealing of Bakoles level than it is of how he performs with no training.

Time will tell though.

Another thing to consider about everyone defending him taking this fight due to the money... lets not pretend like he wasnt on his way to making this money anyways. He has many matchups available to him in which would have almost certainly seen him get these paydays.

If anything this loss could hurt his net earnings due to taking a pay cut for his next fight or two as he rebuilds.

 

Im going to lose a lot of money if this doesnt go past 11 rounds, so... expect an early KO here.