I'm not convinced that Beterbiev can beat Bivol

[_Rexy_]

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.

[Babadoux]

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.

[hhh1200]

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

[Superbee]

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...

[_original_]

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

[-Kev-]

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.

[PBR Streetgang]

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.

[PBR Streetgang]

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.

[cork]

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.

[MulaKO]

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