Dmitry Bivol believes he has the power to knock out undisputed light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev in their rematch on February 22 in Riyadh.
It would be an interesting fight if Bivol decides to fight more aggressively in the rematch, as he mostly ran and held for the last seven rounds in his loss to Beterbiev two months ago on October 12 in Riyadh. So the judges gave the victory to Arthur. It looked like Bivol was trying to get a cheap win by doing the bare minimum.
Bivol is not a big puncher and could put himself at risk if he tries to go for a knockout against Betrbiev, who is above him in the strength and toughness department. Dmitri is more of a conditioning fighter who uses his boxing skills to win fights. He tried that approach against Beterbiev, but withered when he was attacked.
Buffalo’s new approach
Former WBA 175-pound champion Bivol has to change his fighting style 100% to knock out Beterbiev. The Matchroom-promoted Dmitri was too defensive and showed no desire to stand and engage the Beterbies.
Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) says he is studying video of his 12-round majority decision loss to Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs) on Oct. 12 and is looking for areas he can improve on for the rematch in 75 days. The scores were 115-113, 116-112 for Betterbiev and 114-114.
“I try not to pay attention to what people say.” I’m trying to pay attention to what I’m feeling after the fight and what I need to do,” Dmitry Bivol told Secondsout about how he’s tuning out fan comments as he heads into his February 22 rematch against Artur Beterbiev.
“Of course, I felt I had enough strength. We have a saying: ‘Even a stick (gun) can shoot once a year.’
“It makes you weaker if you make excuses.” He wants to fight him,” Biwall said of Terence Crawford wanting to fight Canelo Alvarez.
It’s hard to take Bivol seriously with his talk of believing he can knock Beterbiev out as he looked too scared to do anything but survive when Arthur ramped up his attack into full gear after the fifth round.
Conquering Doubt
The buffalo had a look in its eyes on the person it was chasing angry bearand he had no fight in him. It was pure terror. In order to even win the rematch by decision, Biwall has to be willing to risk getting knocked out by standing and engaging Beterby, as he failed to do last time.
Furthermore, we saw the same thing from Dmitri when he fought Lyndon Arthur last year on December 23rd. Bivol was injured by a heavy body blow from Arthur in the eighth round and was on the run from that moment on. When Dmitri gets hit hard, he gives up the fight and looks nothing like a world-class fighter.
What was hilarious and disgusting was how Buffalo’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, later appealed the decision, feeling that Dmitri had won. Hearn chose not to take the high road by being gracious in defeat and ranting about the result.
He should have admitted that Bivol gave the fight away by running from the sixth to the twelfth round. Of course, if Hearn had admitted that Biwall didn’t show his heart in the heat of battle, the rematch wouldn’t have made sense.
Hopefully the Beterbiev-Bivol rematch will close a chapter in this rivalry as it will be more fun for fans to see Beterbiev fight the winner of the February 1st fight between David Benavidez and David Morrell. The two have much more styles for the fans than Buffalo, who has a Shakur-esque style.
