Beterbiev Stands With Turki Alalshikh And Bivol, Shows A Beautiful Painting
Unknown, newly minted light heavyweight champion, Artur Beterbiev, stood next to the Honorable Turki Alalshikh and WBA belt holder Dmitry Bivol in a post today on social media. Turki uploaded a photo of himself, Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs), and Bivol on his X. Turki holds a beautiful painting of Beterbiev and Bivol in the picture.
Beterbiev looked as if he had never fought, showing no signs of injury on his face in his 12-round multiple decision victory over Bivol last Saturday night at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh. Beterbiev’s fists looked big in the photo, almost like he was wearing gloves. That might explain why his fists are so strong. They are like two sledge hammers.
Bivol failed on the scorecards, losing 114-114, 115-113 and 116-112. The fight was lost when Beterbiev transformed into Superman, went into hyper mode in the second round and beat Bivol in the ring, forcing him to move to avoid being taken out. After the fight, the promoter of Bivol, Eddie Hearn, was jumping to see his plans for a big fight between Dmitry and Canelo Alvarez.
Hearn publicly stated that Bivol should have won, but received very little sympathy from the fans, who saw him in denial. Bivol still has an outside chance of getting the Canelo big money fight, but he has to beat Beterbiev to get that honor.
“I thought Artur went inside a little bit, and the other laps there were big, big laps. He didn’t do anything, and Artur was all over him and I think that changed a lot for us,” said John Scully, Artur Beterbiev’s trainer, speaking to Boxing King Media, about the reason why they got the win by bypassing the judges. Dmitry Bivol.
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🥊❤️🔥💪🏻 pic.twitter.com/0z56acpfSZ
– TURKI ALALSHIKH (@Turki_alalshikh) October 13, 2024
“Absolutely not. These guys are the best in the world. You don’t go into a fight like this expecting to get hit,” said Scully when asked how surprised he was that Bivol went 12 rounds without getting hit.
Beterbiev may have knocked Bivol out if he had knocked him out in the first round as he did parts of the seventh and eighth rounds. If Beterbiev had attacked Bivol like he did in his fight against Radivoje Kalajdzic, he would have conceded. That was vintage Beterbiev versus Hotrod.
“Obviously he got hit by some big shots, and he hit a good punch,” Scully said of Bivol’s swollen left eye. “He’s got a solid shot. There were a few times when I thought we had him. I thought we really had him. I thought the war would end. He looked like he had loose legs, but he was a good fighter. So, he passed,” said Scully.
There were several rounds where Beterbiev dropped Bivol and made him look very stressed. He was taking big hits with those plans and it looked like he was close to being stopped. Pro-Bivol fans thought they wouldn’t remember those rounds, but there are a lot of them. If Beterbiev learns from this fight, he will knock Bivol out of the rematch.
“You never know in a war like that. I always said, ‘Go and win.’ I always told a fighter in that situation to go and win. I thought Artur was in charge the last round. Halfway through, I thought we had a good chance of being beaten. But as I say. Dmitry is world class. I don’t mind seeing a repeat. Now that they know each other, the rematch can be even better,” said Scully.
Beterbiev tried to go public in the twelfth round, but Bivol pinned him repeatedly to prevent him from taking the lead. Bivol’s constant tying backfired, causing him to win the round by throwing the gun. All Bivol had to do was throw shots to win the round. However, he looked tired and injured many times in the previous rounds, and he didn’t want to take the chance of getting hit by a barrage of hard shots from Beterbiev.
