Dmitry Bivol gets down to business, training in the snow for a rematch in 68 days against undisputed light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev on February 22, 2025 in Riyadh.
Bivol, 33, needs to step up his punching output in the rematch, not as much in the ring as he did in the first fight. To many fans, it looked like he was running away from the fight, giving the impression that Bivol was in survival mode for the entire 12-round contest.
What Bivol must do in the rematch
- Stay in Pocket & Engage
- Increase the impact of the shot
- Don’t stay and run
- Show Courage: Buffalo missed this ending last time.
Buffalo’s minimalist approach
In his loss to Beterbiev, Bivol appeared to be trying to get a cheap win by doing the bare minimum and hoping the judges would give him the win based on his minimalist approach.
Former WBA 175-pound champion Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) lost to Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs) via a 12-round majority decision two months ago on October 12th. The judges scored 115-113, 116-112 for Beterbiev and 114-114.
Due to the interest of fans, promoters, Eddie Hearn of Matchroom & Top Rank and Turk Alalshik, Bivol gets a rematch that he doesn’t deserve. He should earn a rematch because he didn’t show courage in their first fight last October.
He wrestled just like Shakur Stevenson, who uses the same style and was booed out of the arena. Buffalo needs a complete reconstruction.
In the video clip, Bivol uses a lot of feints and moves his upper body to avoid imaginary punches coming his way from Betterby on February 22nd.
Engage to Win
Let’s hope Bivol comes to the fight this time as he showed no willingness to engage with Beterby when he started applying non-stop pressure from the sixth round. It was hard to watch last time.
Bivol was aggressive when fighting smaller fighters, but looked scared against Beterbiev. We saw similar behavior from Buffalo when Lyndon Arthur hurt him in the eighth round of their fight on December 23, 2023. Buffalo got on the bike and stayed on the move for the final four rounds to win by decision. He seemed afraid of Arthur.
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