That really tells the story about Beterbiev. He seemed popular, a can 't miss prospect, then his popularity took a dip and now it's coming back up again. But even after the Yarde fight, whom he blew up, there's some criticism again. I thought he looked good. He showed good angles against a guy that came to fight (in his hometown) and could punch. I believe some people think he looks too slow or something.
Ward kept talking about how Yarde is too muscular. He wasn't near as strong as Beterbiev. Ward ends up with a tummy full of the losers cum in a lot of these fights.
Dude could singlehandedly decimate the Ukrainian army with nothing more than Q ball in a sock. A real life Ivan Drago
You have a weird aversion to the amateurs that I don't share. Amateur boxing is boxing and Beterbiev was an elite amateur boxer, who had the distinction of having a highly competitive trilogy with P4P No.1, CW and HW champ Usyk. Amateur boxing is obviously relevant to his boxing career. Beterbiev was 28 when he turned pro after a long amateur career, which isn't conducive to racking up tons of pro fights. He has had well-documented promotional problems leading to inactivity, injuries and obvious marketing deficiencies (12K followers on Twitter for example). Being a white-skinned Chechen Muslim Russian stationed out in Canada has obvious drawbacks in these respects. And Beterbiev has long been one of the most feared fighters in the sport, with a record which suggests he's the most dangerous puncher in boxing relative to his weight class, so you can guarantee that matchmaking has been an uphill battle. Yet despite all of this, Beterbiev has the best LHW win in a very long time (Gvozdyk) as it was dominant and uncontroversial, over a top fighter and favourite, as the B-side rather than the A-side and resulted in the retirement of a high level champion in his prime, which is very rare. Moving up and down in weight is a good way to duck and cherrypick fighters, it's often cheap and I suspect that fighters generally do it by being juiced out of their minds. It's also impractical to move up if you turn pro as a mature man, rather than as a teenager in a low weight class who is going to gain a huge amount of natural size. And the weight gap between LHW and cruiser is the biggest in the sport, while LHW has historically been a wealthier and more prestigious division. There's no clear reason why Beterbiev should have handicapped himself and worn himself out faster by fighting bigger men as a pro, which he frequently did in the amateurs anyway. Beterbiev is a highly physical pressure fighter, which would not translate as well as a mover style when climbing the weights.
Bivol has been chasing Canelo paydays since at least 2018 while Beterbiev rots on the vine. He doesn't deserve the opportunity.
His KO 100% is no more but in his defence he lost it against a fellow highly ranked top 10 pounder for pounder who is one of the very best defensive fighters in the sport and who is tough and has never been floored 'In terms of defense, Bivol's opponents land just six punches per round, third fewest in the sport, while his opponents land those shots at a 13% rate, the lowest opponent connect percentage in all of boxing'