Comments Thread For: Artur Beterbiev beating Dmitry Bivol was no robbery

[Ironman1235]

It was no robbery but Beterbiev’s corner told him he needed to ko Bivol to win. Enough said.

[MONGOOSE66]

I have yet to find someone that didnt say this was a close fight.
ALL close fights can go either way. This is nothing new. Whats wrong with people??

[Boxfan83]

It was a robbery. It would be a struggle to find 7 rnds that Artur actually looked good in and did great work.
Bivol didn't do himself any favors by covering up for long stretches in certain rounds, but outside of a body shot here and there,i really can't even remember any Artur punches that he landed. I clearly remember Art getting rocked in the 7th and clean combos from Bivol though

Bivol won 4rds tops. For 8 of the 12rds Bivol didn't throw any punches the last minute to minute and a half after he'd piss Artur off.

[TheOneAboveAll]

I missed the live show and watched it back the following day. I wanted Bivol to win this fight, I said Bivol would win this fight, and I even wore my Bivol t-shirt for it, but I scored it cleanly for Beterbiev. By 'cleanly', I do not mean to suggest that this was an easy fight to score. It was not. There were several very close rounds, but, once again, no judge nor any commentator that I heard, actually scored a 10-10 round (for some unknown reason). I believe that judges should aim to be decisive, but I also believe that it is a great mistake to judge a winner of rounds by the finest of margins. This always leads to controversy and/or lopsided scoring, because the judge always leans to their favorite fighter/preferred style when deciding on razor-thin margins. Having said that, I typically score at least one even round per fight. For this fight, I scored three even rounds and wound up with a score of 117-114 for Beterbiev. Bivol had the flashier moments, but he must realize that he gave ground waay too readily for the entire night. This was his undoing in my opinion. He boxed well in short spurts, but he did not assert himself as the effective aggressor or significantly outland Beterbiev to win it.

Though this fight had been somewhat simplistically reduced to a style matchup between classic boxer vs puncher, that really wasn't how the fight played out, because Bivol isn't really the slickest of pure boxers. He comes a bit too straight-on to call him that. Bivol countered effectively at times, but he frequently backed off in full-retreat (for too long) when Beterbiev pressed, instead of skillfully slipping shots and immediately re-engaging his attack. This was not SRL-Duran II, or even SRL-Hagler. Bivol simply did not trust his chin or ability to hurt his opponent enough to sustain his attacks for more than a few seconds, and then he was back to the back foot letting Beterbiev press again. If he doesn't completely change his strategy in the rematch, he will lose again.

[TheOneAboveAll]

It was no robbery but Beterbiev’s corner told him he needed to ko Bivol to win. Enough said.

A lot has been made of that, but I don't think those statements are any kind of admission that Beterbiev's team thought he was losing. They simply recognized that it was a close fight and did not want their fighter to leave it in the hands of the judges, which only makes sense, particularly since Bivol is regarded as the more popular fighter. It's fairly common for corners to say these things to push their fighter's to finish strong.

[Theshotyoudontsee]

It was no robbery but Beterbiev’s corner told him he needed to ko Bivol to win. Enough said.

They told him that because they had never seen Biev get a decision and they didnt want to leave it to the judges. Many corners say this in close fights, because as we all know, judging is a mess these days.

Biev and his team looked unsure after the fight because of this. Biev did everything he could, he was the aggressor, made the fight and busted Bivol up. Bivol ran most of the fight and landed some pitty pat flurries here and there, he fought to not get stopped. Smart, but that won't win a championship fight unless you pull it off perfectly, and Bivol got knocked around, pushed around and it was obvious he was scared of getting hurt.

I mean no shame in it, he is the one guy to last 12 with Biev. That said, it made for an ok but mostly drama free 12 rounds and he never looked there to win it, just there to not get stopped.

Biev won by at least 3 rounds, and 4 rounds is totally acceptable. Props to Bivol fans who admit it, Bivol fought smart and he lost. Had he tried to stop Biev, he may have gotten stopped, or maybe he could have stopped Biev. But he lost.

The whole thing is that many Bivol fans, many of which are Canelo fans, wanted to see Canelo redeemed....that includes many in the sport who make money on Canelo and hate to hear he is overrated. Biev was made the villian from the get go for some reason....I expect Hearn behind the scenes influenced a lot of that. Biev is incredibly fun to watch and destructive, a throwback fighter. Very humble and the real deal. Bivol always been kind of boring.

The narrative before the fight is feeding in to this. Biev won, no question. Many Bivol/Canelo fans have reverted to Olympic scoring, and it is the pros. Not amateurs.

[Bob]

At last a common sense article on the matter.
I scored it by 2 for Beterbiev live & by 3 on a second watch, a couple of rounds were so close i even rewatched them again.
I watched it on Prime in the UK & Richie Woodhall was scoring on the broadcast & he had Beterbiev by 4.

It's a funny old game.

[Phase III]

In this alternate reality T R U M P world we live in, Turki’s lap dog Eddie said Bivol won so are we to just make believe and make him happy since his fighters are on the greatest losing streak boxing has known?

[jackblack008]

Very true. It was a close match and could have gone either way

[M312]

Boxrec has it 115-114 Beterbiev among 140 scorers

https://boxrec.com/en/scoring/3213264

Fair dos. I'm surprised, but that's a pretty decent sample size.