Shakur Stevenson believes Dmitry Bivol will be victorious this Saturday night if he finishes stronger than in his first fight with unified light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev last October. Bivol (23-1,12 KOs) in Riyadh.
Mental Warfare
In the second half, Bivol wilted mentally and physically from the pressure Beterbiev put on him and refused to fight. In war terms, he was on a full-scale retreat from the sixth and never chose to dig in and fight after he’d taken some big shots from Artur.
For the fans who enjoy watching pure boxing, they were depressed to see Bivol crumble the way he did, but it wasn’t unexpected if you’d followed his entire career. We’d seen the same behavior from him in his fights against Joe Smith Jr. and Lyndon Arthur. Bivol is okay when he’s on top, landing all the shots, but when he gets hit back hard, he turns and retreats, and he stays in that mode.
The wolf-like Beterbiev exposed that mental weakness in the first fight with Dmitry, and you can bet he’s ready to finish off vulnerable prey in the rematch. This could be short and brutal on Saturday, making many Bivol fans unhappy. If they’d studied his past fights, they’d have known what the future holds for him. He’s fine when he’s got an easy mark in front of him, like the smaller Canelo Alvarez, but he goes to pieces when dealing with pressure.
“If Bivol finishes stronger this time, I think he wins the fight,” said Shakur Stevenson to DAZN Boxing, giving his two cents on Saturday’s rematch between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol.
Bivol’s Safety-First Style
It’s understandable why Shakur is on the Bivol bandwagon; they’re birds of a feather. Bivol is a safety-risk type of fighter, just like Shakur, and that’s why he’s never become popular despite holding the WBA title from 2017 to 2024. That’s a long seven-year-reign, and Bivol should have become a star holding onto a title that long. He didn’t because of his risk-averse style of fighting.
“This is a man [Beterbiev] on a mission, and Bivol is going to have to rise to a very high occasion,” said DAZN reporter Claudia Trejo. “If that’s what he could do at that age [39] at only 80%, imagine what he could do at 100%,” said Claudia, talking bout Beterbiev coming off knee surgery for his first fight with Bivol on October 12th. “No politics. It [the rematch] was done very quickly.”
“When I saw it, I thought, ‘This can’t be happening because they can’t be turning around that quick,’” said Ade Oladipo about the Beterbiev-Bivol rematch happening so soon. I always refer to a boxer going into their tool bag like a mechanic and finding a tool for the problem.
“He needs to risk a lot more in this fight,” said Trejo about Bivol. “He’s going to have to sit, he’s going to have to bang it out, and he’s going to have to go toe-to-toe. What I saw in the first Beterbiev-Bivol 1 was Beterbiev doing what he does best, which is literally going after his prey.”
Bivol should stay in the pocket more in the rematch, but he won’t. He has a habit, and habits are hard to eliminate. It’s like a person saying they’re going to stop smoking. Many of them can’t kick the habit. Bivol is the same way. He talks about being more aggressive, but once he gets a taste of the lash from Beterbiev, he’ll be off to the races, and it’ll be the same as last time. If the judges want to give Bivol an undeserving win and pave the way for a trilogy, they can, but it’ll be an unpopular decision.
“I think Beterbiev has the skillset to just plow his way through anything, and he’s just a boogeyman in that division. Light heavyweight is his division,” said Claudia.
“He literally emptied the tool bag,” said Ade about Bivol. “He threw everything he could at Beterbiev. I thought Bivol fought a perfect fight. The problem is, I thought Beterbiev fought a perfect fight as well.
Last Updated on 02/17/2025
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