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

Well I won my bets on Bivol and on the over... but idk, Ill have to rewatch it... this was a better fight than the first but it was far from a satisfactory conclusion to me... Artur was mauling Bivol for large portions of the fight to the point I was genuinely worried Bivol might wilt, yes Bivol did great at regaining his momentum, but at the end of the day he survived and outpointed a 40 year old Artur by backpeddling majority of the fight,
barely edging it out in such a manner is anti climatic for me personally and AB is hardly a vanquished fighter here, he simply got outpouinted by the younger fighter who spent much of the time backpeddling.

Im happy for Bivol though.

I think AB is not going to get the credit he deserves for these performances. Its generational talent to have such good performances at 40 years old against such a high level opponent, imo.

Ive seen some say they want AB to retire and while I understand that sentiment, again Bivol fought an almost perfect fight to 'beat' Artur and in a manner I dont think many fighters could replicate. Constantly retreating and staying just on the outside of ABs range like he did, those are HOF performances in skill and discipline and Im not sure anyone else at the weight can reproduce that gameplan.

A third fight seems a bit anti climatic at this point because we know exactly what it will look like, with Bivol backpeddling all fight n throwing some flurries that win him the round against an even older Biev.

Id just prefer either one against David at this point.

Anyways I know Im coming off negative but genuinely am happy for Bivol and happy this fight was much better than the first. (Imo)

Look forward to what they do next, hopefully not a third fight though.

 

Agreed. Seems pretty clear, imo.

 

It was a clear change in strategy by Bivol, instead of wearing himself out early by throwing a shitton of punches, to fade down the stretch, he nicked the first three. Then let Beterbiev blows his load, then he came roaring back late with far more gas in his tank. It wasn't that hard to predict, he and his team realized they needed to dose their efforts more effectively, and they did just that.