Artur Beterbiev fought a full twelve round fight for the first time this month, beating Dmitry Bivol by majority decision after all 20 of his previous contests were won by knockout.
The hard-fought win in Saudi Arabia crowned him the undisputed light-heavyweight champion. As with most close decisions, there has been intense debate since with plenty in the sport feeling the fast-footed technician Bivol deserved the nod. That included Bivol’s promoter Eddie Hearn, who said his man was robbed of victory.
Speaking to Dan Rafael on the Fight Freaks Unite podcast, Beterbiev’s promoter Bob Arum first praised both competitors.
“I think it was a terrific battle between two really outstanding light-heavyweight fighters who had different fight styles and that made it a really interesting fight to watch.”
The 92-year-old, who has seen plenty of close fights in his time, revealed that he gave it to Beterbiev by two rounds.
“I thought Beterbiev won the fight. I had it 7-5 for Beterbiev. Particularly because he came on in the late rounds, sweeped the late rounds, which he had to do to win the fight.
I think before people make any judgements about the fight they should look at the judges’ scorecards. Three judges had ten rounds identical. In other words, there was no dispute as far as ten rounds were concerned. That came out six for Beterbiev, four for Bivol. There were two rounds where the judges were split. In those rounds, one had both for Beterbiev, one had both for Bivol and the American judge, Feldman, had it one each.
That’s why you got scores of a draw, 7-5 for Beterbiev and 8-4 for Beterbiev. It was a very well judged fight. It wasn’t judges being all over the place.”
Arum then said that the TV coverage – produced by DAZN but broadcast by many others worldwide – showed Bivol in a favourable light.
“I think that a lot of people viewing that fight that claimed Bivol won were influenced by the TV production which was done by DAZN even thought in the US it was shown on ESPN+.
Because if you looked at that, between rounds when they reviewed the highlights of the previous rounds, overwhelmingly it was for Bivol. It was Bivol-friendly because Bivol is a DAZN fight with Eddie Hearn. I think that influenced a lot of people. That being said it was a very close, very well-fought fight.”
