It's possible. Beterbiev is nearly 40 now and is out of his sheer physical prime. However, he still has a lot of ring IQ, has lived clean, trains hard and it's hard to see Bivol keeping him off for 12 full rounds. All it takes is a few body shots to slow Bivol down, his hands to drop and something comes over the top which hurt him. On the other hand, Bivol has not had a KO since 2018 and is relatively light punching compared to Beterbiev. The longer we wait, the more it favours Bivol. And apologies once again, I didn't mean any offence with my earlier comment.
I don't think Yarde has the toolset to keep Beterbiev off him. He's limited enough as a boxer that he can't just outpoint Beterbiev, either. Yarde is looking at a round 5-7 stoppage by Beterbiev as he crumples up under Artur's body shots.
I just can't see a path to victory for Yarde unless Beterbiev gets old overnight and his abilities fall off a cliff while Yards does a career best performance. Even then I don't like his chances.
I say he’s at least knocked down by round 2 or 3, and Beterbiev probably has him out of there by 5 or 6.
Like many posters here I think it's very unlikely Yarde sees the 8th. However it would be super juicy to see the warsaw pact here have a giant meltdown if Beterbiev managed to get KOed somehow. Cool, I like watching Beterbiev. I can't wait to see his resume described by a fan. Hopefully it's not basically amateur stuff and eye test only, like pretty much every east euro fighter... Yikes! If you mean in general as opposed to right now I would have to beg to disagree. I don't know about "worth nothing" but if that's all you have, then it's not worth much in the grand scheme.
If he exchanges like Smith, KO 1. But I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to fight more defensively/safely, with the face-saving tactic of 'trying to take old Beterbiev into deep waters', but really just because he's scared of him. And in that case, it wouldn't be amazing to see him get to the second half. Just for the record on this place, Beterbiev is not an Eastern European, he's a Chechen absorbed into the Russian empire, then by the Anglosphere after that. He's far closer to a Khabib than to a Povetkin/Usyk/Loma etc.
