I've been thinking is this fight going to be similar to Crawford-Spence? Now I'm not saying Bivol is going to get washed like Spence did. However, I do think this is a situation where you have a special fighter in Beterbiev against a very solid guy in Bivol. Similar to Crawford being special and Spence being very good. Bivol has great fundamentals but it's mostly 1-2s with great distance management. He has great footwork and his handspeed is superior to Beterbiev's. People might disagree with me but Beterbiev's style is much more difficult to perfect. He is also more talented than Bivol offensively, without question. I think we've seen Bivol and his style way more than Beterbiev's style. It's not going to the schooling that Crawford-Spence was but I do think Beterbiev will stop Bivol late in the fight. I do think the more special fighter is in fact Beterbiev. The only questions for me are how much does the knee play a factor and will age catch up to Beterbiev where his style is harder impose since it relies a lot on stamina.
The first big question is how will Bivol deal with being tagged relatively flush. The second is how well he handles the attrition of being in the ring with Beterbiev. It's definitely a salivating match-up since there are so many questions to be answered through the bout, there is a potential for a brutal knockout, and devastating boxer-puncher against pure outside boxer will never not be entertaining. You just know that if Bivol is to win, he will have to be on point like a mongoose killing a cobra.
I like watching Bivol. Not sure he can keep Beterbiev at bay for 12 rounds. He's going to have to fight something akin to the perfect fight.
I actually think it's a bad style matchup for the 39 year old Beterbiev. But what do I know. We wont know until they start trading punches, I'm looking forward to it.
Bivol doesn’t have punching power. I think you need that in order to beat Beterbiev. I think a puncher is more of a threat to Beterbiev than a pure boxer. But we shall see. I am looking forward to this one as well. Usually you don’t get 50/50 fights in boxing.
Without a doubt, that's why I don't think AB will school Bivol as badly as Crawford did to Spence. I do think AB will win the fight and is the more special fighter, similar to Crawford. People will disagree with me, but I'll say it and I don't care. Bivol is way more basic than AB, similar to Spence. The difference being Bivol is much more responsible defensively. He also has better footwork than Spence, by like 1000x. Saying someone is basic isn't really an insult and to be as good fundamentally as Bivol takes a lot of skill. If it were that easy, there would be way more people as champions. But you know what you are going to get from Bivol, he isn't really tricky in there.
Bivol has that thudding power, he's not a KO artist like Beterbiev, but you can see in multiple fights he stuns guys and makes them gun shy, he just doesn't put his foot in the gas (aggravatingly at times). That being said it's a fascinating clash of styles and i'm not rooting for either guy just a good fight.
Beterbiev boxes much better than he's given credit for. Bivol will be faster and more active but Beter will start landing counter shots earlier than expected. R8-R10 stoppage
I've always thought Beterbiev would win this fight and never really entertained the notion of Bivol winning until recently which a lot of people are picking him to do. There were a few spells in the Clenelo fight where he decided to box and move and I think he has that in his locker, does it very well and we might see a lot more of that in this fight. That would worry me as a Beterbiev fan, as would Bivol's youth, speed or hand and foot, volume punching which can keep Betterbiev on the defensive, and he's also tough and has underrated strength and power. But that being said, he's got to keep Beterbiev off of him for 12 rounds and Beterbiev can close the distance with his lunging attacks and once he has you in position he unloads with those heavy barrages of his to head and body and he can inflict real damage and hurt Bivol there. Spence was outclassed against Crawford, whereas, conversely, Bivol outclasses his opponents. I don't see either getting outclassed here though. I expect Bivol to have a lot of success. He might get overwhelmed by the power of Beterbiev but not outclassed. I think it's going to be a very competitive affair but I still favour Beterbiev via late stoppage.
Bivol's wife is part of the reason why i am cheering for him even though i think Beterbiev is the favourite.
