Eddie Hearn feels Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev will have a trilogy – and there's only winner
Feb 26, 2025 • 2:33 PM ET
BELFAST – Matchroom boss Eddie Hearn rates the second fight between light heavyweight stars Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev as the best bout he has seen.
It helped that his man, Bivol, left with the undisputed title around his waist, winning the hotly-anticipated rematch to level the series between the Russians at 1-1.
Beterbiev won the first time by a narrow margin in October, with many thinking Bivol had done enough. This time, Bivol was awarded the decision.
“It's probably the best fight I’ve ever seen live,” said Hearn. “One of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen and Bivol was sitting there now, he’s the nicest bloke in the world, and I said to him, ‘You’re king,’ and he was like, ‘Yes, I am.’ And it’s like, ‘You can fight Canelo in a rematch, you can fight [David] Benavidez, you can fight Callum Smith, you can fight Beterbiev in No. 3, basically whatever His Excellency [Turki Alalshikh] says.”
Bivol already holds a win over Canelo, Benavidez was ringside in Saudi Arabia, angling for a fight with the winner, while Callum Smith defeated the previously-unbeaten Joshua Buatsi in an excellent fight in the undercard.
“He [Alalshikh]’s given him [Bivol] two golden opportunities,” Hearn told a small group of reporters here in Ireland. “The rematch was a real golden opportunity because that don’t happen very often, especially at that speed [four months after the first fight]. My gut feeling, with how His Excellency feels about being fair, is the trilogy [will be next], and I’d watch it a million times.
“But I think Bivol wins much better in the third fight.”
Tris Dixon covered his first amateur boxing fight in 1996. The former editor of Boxing News, he has written for a number of international publications and newspapers, including GQ and Men’s Health, and is a board member for the Ringside Charitable Trust and the Ring of Brotherhood. He has been a broadcaster for TNT Sports and hosts the popular “Boxing Life Stories” podcast. Dixon is a British Boxing Hall of Famer, an International Boxing Hall of Fame elector, a BWAA award winner, and is the author of five boxing books, including “Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing” (shortlisted for the William Hill Sportsbook of the Year), “Warrior: A Champion’s Search for His Identity” (shortlisted for the Sunday Times International Sportsbook of the Year) and “The Road to Nowhere: A Journey Through Boxing’s Wastelands.” You can reach him @trisdixon on X and Instagram.
