I'm not convinced that Beterbiev can beat Bivol

Artur started timing Joe’s jab and countering him over the top. Joe panicked at that. Never a good thing when your game plan gets adjusted to in the first couple minutes. Wasn’t that a thing of beauty You know , with all the bs that Artur can’t box and ( can’t say this with a straight face ) Joe was going to outbox the mauler Cause all he is , is a fughin mauler Canelo gonna put him in his place If only I had a dollar ( even Canadian ) every time I heard that one

Bivol will take everything beter does good away from him and dominate him over 12 rounds or possible stop him if beter gets wreckless and frustrated Not taking anything away from Bivol , I think he’s great and very good at it But you undermining Beterbiev way to much brother Remember regular Joe was getting thrashed by Bivol only to hurt him badly and have run onto his bicycle Beterbiev ain’t no regular Joe , he has a very high ring iq , has good footwork , no problems boxing ( proven against Gvodzyk ) And oh yeah , forgot , his power speaks for itself Big Joe hurt him in the 10th if I’m not mistaken , after being toyed with and dispensing enormous energy , imagine Artur who carries power throughout the fight

Smith Jr has very good power and very good chin. This leads to him being defensively careless. He paid for it. Dmitry Bivol is not defensively careless. He is clearly a very smart fighter. But so was Gvozdyk, and Gvozdyk had really good power. I am not sure who wins between Bivol and Beterbiev though. I admit, age leads me to pick Bivol edging it. While Beterbiev looked legitimately amazing (not just “for his age”) at 37 vs a prime top 3 LHW, father time can show up at any point of your late 30s. It really can happen between fights, probably at the gym. You lose a step in the gym first. It won’t necessary show up in the previous fight. So I lean towards Bivol. Especially because Beterbiev vs Bivol will likely happen with AB at age 38. That Gvozdyk fight was where I was really impressed with beterbiev. Gvozdyk just put Adonis in a coma right before that fight and beterbiev just walked through all his punches. Age does catch up but I just don't believe bivol have the power Gvozdyk had. Even against canelo he shelled up and that's gonna get him killed against beterbiev if he doesn't keep moving. I'm gonna go with beterbiev late tko. I never seen anyone built like beterbiev with his skill level and power. Too bad he's a bit old and his career started late.

Smith Jr has very good power and very good chin. This leads to him being defensively careless. He paid for it. Dmitry Bivol is not defensively careless. He is clearly a very smart fighter. But so was Gvozdyk, and Gvozdyk had really good power. I am not sure who wins between Bivol and Beterbiev though. I admit, age leads me to pick Bivol edging it. While Beterbiev looked legitimately amazing (not just “for his age”) at 37 vs a prime top 3 LHW, father time can show up at any point of your late 30s. It really can happen between fights, probably at the gym. You lose a step in the gym first. It won’t necessary show up in the previous fight. So I lean towards Bivol. Especially because Beterbiev vs Bivol will likely happen with AB at age 38. I always felt like Gvozdyk was incredibly skilled but used his fluid offensive attack as his primary defense. That emphasis allowed him to stop normally durable guys in magnificent fashion (Chilemba, Gonzalez, Stevenson) but also allowed him to get hit at times (Karpency). Gvozdyk was landing alot of leather on Beterbiev but was exerting incredible amounts of energy and taking punishment to do so. Bivol is more defensively minded than Gvozdyk and uses angles and distance to control pace and avoid damage. It would be a helluva fight and.vety interesting to see if Bivol's skillet would good enough to derail Beterbiev.

Artur started timing Joe’s jab and countering him over the top. Joe panicked at that. Never a good thing when your game plan gets adjusted to in the first couple minutes. Absolutely correct. Left side of Joe's face was reddened and swelling incredibly early courtesy of Artur timing those jabs. Plan A didn't survive a minute into the fight and Plan B seemed to be even worse of an idea.

Smith Jr has very good power and very good chin. This leads to him being defensively careless. He paid for it. Dmitry Bivol is not defensively careless. He is clearly a very smart fighter. But so was Gvozdyk, and Gvozdyk had really good power. I am not sure who wins between Bivol and Beterbiev though. I admit, age leads me to pick Bivol edging it. While Beterbiev looked legitimately amazing (not just “for his age”) at 37 vs a prime top 3 LHW, father time can show up at any point of your late 30s. It really can happen between fights, probably at the gym. You lose a step in the gym first. It won’t necessary show up in the previous fight. So I lean towards Bivol. Especially because Beterbiev vs Bivol will likely happen with AB at age 38.

50-50 fight for me, great clash of styles.

Come back to me in 2 years b/c Bivol could have taken this fight in 2019. 'Obvious like Spence / Crawford, the aging game is being played on Beterbiew Yet what we saw from his last 3 fights (not counting Deines) seem to prove you wrong.... Artur seem to step up when the time comes... And he doesn't seem to know what aging is... probably another language problem... :p

Come back to me in 2 years b/c Bivol could have taken this fight in 2019. 'Obvious like Spence / Crawford, the aging game is being played on Beterbiew

That's why they would need to fight. We don't ever really know until the fights happen. Having said that, I favor Beterbiev over Bivol, but if the fight doesn't happen next it will be stalled with other less significant in-between fights like Bivol vs Buatsi, Beterbiev vs Yarde, Canelo vs Bivol 2 (potentially), etc.

We tend to let our passions affect our reasoning on the heels of a spectacular event. Beterbiev's destruction of Smith was impressive but it tells us nothing of a fight between him and Bivol. Smith came out with a game plan of a heavy jab using distance (good) but fairly early he got clipped with a right and tossed his entire plan out the window. Instead of the jab and distance, he started throwing some wide, slow haymakers (bad). It was an inevitable conclusion at that point. Bivol has elite level footwork and appreciation of angles and distance. I'm not saying Bivol definitely wins but I favor him it will be a very different fight. ​​​​​ Artur started timing Joe’s jab and countering him over the top. Joe panicked at that. Never a good thing when your game plan gets adjusted to in the first couple minutes.

Yeah i also still got Bivol. Crazy really how people switch up just because he destroyed a guy who didn’t belong in there. Just a few weeks ago thr sentiment was that Bivol was the favorite, now it seems everyone is picking AB.

As long as Bivol stays restrained and focused, like he did versus Canelo, Bivol will outbox Artur over 12. Of course, he has at times shown he can get bored and tuned out early... (he got caught by Joe smith jr flush).... fortunately it was at the end of the round. I really see the same type of fight vs Beterbiev as we saw vs Canelo.....

Yeah Its funny how you see some of these guys on youtube claim bivol is basic, to make canelo look bad for losing to him, but he is acutely dynamic, and smart, bivol will not play into beterbievs hands, joe smith fought dumb, why would you go toe to toe with a power puncher in close when you got long ass arms?

Makes me laugh how are you guys high on Beterbiev based on him beating one of Bivol`s leftovers. Don`t get me wrong, he is a great fighter, but a few weeks ago he was seen as some Russian bum that would Canelo stop easily.

He definitely won’t fight the stupid fight Smith did. He’s really a club fighter with a belt. There’s nothing world class about him.

Bivol is not a better fighter than Artur. Artur does things in a way the common eye might not see. Bivol is a great fighter, Artur is a better fighter and a destruction machine. Artur wins this one in 10 or less. And I am a fan of both fighters.

Arthur will be the favorite. I think it go similar too the Gvozdyk fight where I was thinking the whole time where Arthur was losing but eventually overwhelm his opponent. Just don't see bivol defense is good enough or have enough power to keep beterbiev off him for 12 rounds

We tend to let our passions affect our reasoning on the heels of a spectacular event. Beterbiev's destruction of Smith was impressive but it tells us nothing of a fight between him and Bivol. Smith came out with a game plan of a heavy jab using distance (good) but fairly early he got clipped with a right and tossed his entire plan out the window. Instead of the jab and distance, he started throwing some wide, slow haymakers (bad). It was an inevitable conclusion at that point. Bivol has elite level footwork and appreciation of angles and distance. I'm not saying Bivol definitely wins but I favor him it will be a very different fight. ​​​​​

It is 50/50 fight. If the fight happened this year I slightly favour Artur over Bivol. However next year when Artur is 38yo has less chance to win. BIvol is able to outbox Beterbiev!