Sure, makes a nice appetizer but the main course for either is Kovalev. If they don't fight each other first, then we get two big fights ahead for Kovalev with two guys carrying their current momentum (instead of having one halt the other's and setting them on the regrouping trail) I've got no problem with Gvozdyk vs. Beterbiev, just prefer a sequence where Kovalev fights them successively before they do.
I don't think that Gvozdyk and Beterbiev are ready for Kovalev right now. They haven't fought anyone that is remotely as good as him. They need to take the next step before facing Kova and fighting each other would be a wise move in my opinion. And that might be the Arum's plan as well.
Kevin Willis is very emotional about these men. He wants a fighter to try and get him pregnant and I always tell him that it can't happen because he is a dude but he won't listen. He just tucks his junk under his taint, slides on his hello kitty thong and prances around like the twink his father made.
Good news for him. Hopefully it is full speed ahead now. last i heard an April/may date in Grozny was being worked on but that was before TR entered the picture, I think. Not sure how TR being his primary promoter would effect this eve
He was perhaps less stilted as an amateur, but I was never that impressed even by what I saw of Beterbiev in the vest, notwithstanding his stats. As a pro, he's an awesome force in as much as he's a very big, strong man at the weight and seemingly possessed of a coldly destructive indifference to human life, but I find little pleasure or nuance in watching him. The first time I see him up against someone I can root for with any belief will be the first time I derive any kind of excitation from viewing one of his bouts.
Well it comes down, I guess, to whether you care more about building either or both of them up, or maximizing the good they can do for Kovalev personally. I think beating one after they beat the other is very nice, but the effect isn't additive. Snatching both of their zeroes is still a greater net gain for Kovalev than defeating one after he does the whole "quickening" Highlander thing (absorbing the other guy's shine) - which boosts that guy but, in a zero-sum game sense, devalues the other. Artur has been shouting from the rafters for him for years, and believes himself to be the A-side because he beat Kov twice in the amateurs. I say grant his wish.
That wouldn't really make sense, Beterbiev is already 33 years old. He needs the big fight as soon as possible.
Kathy and Bob should just pool all four of their light heavyweight prizes and pit them against each other in a mini tourney. I'd say toss in Shabranskyy and Mikhalkin to include all the premier talent at 175lbs from the former USSR territories but Kov is already halfway through ruining that pair. Hmm...maybe Mekhontsev and Akhmedov as alternates (or include Shab & Mikhalkin anyway to make it a nice round 8 participants to allow for a WBSS style quarterfinals format, even though they'd clearly be bottom seeded)?
I'd love to see Beterbiev vs. Joe Smith Jr. am I crazy for thinking Joe has a chance to spark Artur and fairly early? Hopefully before he gets his jaw broken again.
I never bought into the Smith hype after Fonfara or even Hopkins (and consider Smith very lucky to have a name like B-Hop on his record, having caught him when he was just slowed down enough for a crude pedestrian banger to keel over the ropes like it was WWE's Royal Rumble...) but yeah he does have the power to win a shootout with Beterbiev...although, anyone with a chance of that also has as good a chance of losing a shootout with Beterbiev in brutal, gory fashion. (unless they're made of iron)
I never bought into it either, aside from the fact that I called both the Fonfara and Hopkins KO, but what I do buy into is his power, Joe hits like a ton of bricks, if he comes in swinging for the fences, he either wins by KO1 or 2 or loses by KO 1 or 2 IMO. Regardless of the outcome, Goddamn it would be brutal as ****.