A lot of punch, a lot of jaw, a lot of physical strength... too much for bivol... my bet beterviev is on a knockout before the 9th... and if it gets complicated in the 11th
I have a feeling Artur will make a ****ing statement in this one. He knows he doesn’t have too many more fights left at his age and style so he’s going to come out and make this a defining moment. Beterbiev KO by the 7th. Body shots.
Bivol says he's boxing since he is 6 years old. And he outboxed Canelo. I don't think Beterbiev will be able to do what he did to his past opponents. I say Bivol will win by wide UD, something like 117 - 111.
Or it will go exactly like the Gvozdyk match, only Arthur is like five or six years older, so he won't be quite as sharp, so he won't be able to land 850 flush rabbit punches to the back of Bivol's head and like he does everybody else, and instead of dropping him three times he'll just hurt him but then Bivol will survive another round and a half and win on the cards. Sure Bivol might not be quite as good as Gvozdyk, but defensively he's much better.
I hope Beterbiev will demolish him. Everything and everyone in the fight week is pro Bivol. Even crowds are paid to chant Bivols name. Hearn is trying so hard not to lose again. Hearn does not know, when Beterbiev was fighting Gvodzyk in Chicago, it was pro ukrainian crowd, all the people were against him and look what happened to Gvodzyk.
And he also said that he was looking up to Beterbiev in the national team. as Beterbiev was the leader of the whole team. And you can see his body language, when they first met in person in front of the cameras.
While I think Bivol will win by UD, him dominating Canelo something like 120-108, because Ginger Balls did not win a round, ultimately it wasn't all that impressive. He's merely doing the same thing GGG had done twice before and finished the job Kovalev started before his lack of preparation and denigrated chin from his rampant alcoholism did the job for Alvarez. Outboxing Alvarez is not that hard especially when you're twice his size and twice as strong. Don't get it twisted, Beterbiev would have beaten Canelo into a coma. So the Canelo match has absolutely no bearing on what happens later today.
We saw Bivol hurt seriously badly against Joe Smith at the end of a round, and he was clearly seeing stars for a couple of rounds afterwards. This was in a fight where Smith barely landed anything clean, and did not land any sustained work. With Beterbiev you know he is going to land and he will land regularly. I think Beterbiev if at 100% and the knee isnt an issue, breaks Bivol down and stops him around round 9-10.
I don't know. Smith, Berlanga, Kovalev, Plant, Mungia were all bigger than Canelo, and even than Bivol, but Canelo bagged them all. Don't belittle Canelo so much, although he robbed Golovkin twice, he's still a great champion and boxer, in my opinion.
Of course he's great, but still none of the guys you just mentioned are full-fledged light heavyweights. Callum with drained within an inch of his life and Kovalev moved up to Cruiserweight in his next outing, and he had like a two-week training camp after he nearly been knocked out by Anthony Yarde a few weeks before. Hardly adequate preparation.