Craig Richards feels that Artur Beterbiev’s disguising his power was important to his victory over Dmitry Bivol last Saturday night. Light heavyweight contender Richards helped unified 175-lb champion Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs) prepare for the fight against WBA champ Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) by sparring.
Richards says Beterbiev uses many weaker “throwaway” shots to keep his opponents tense, and then he’ll load up with one of his heavy punches. Due to Beterbiev’s power, his opponents can’t relax, and Richard noted that’s what happened with Bivol. He wasn’t relaxed, and he never knew when Beterbiev would throw one of his power shots.
In the later rounds, from 9 through 12, Beterbiev didn’t let off with his pressure and wore Bivol down because he was forced to move nonstop. He couldn’t stand in front of Beterbiev because he was throwing too many punches.
Even though Bivol was blocking many of the shots, the concussive force from the blows was coming through his gloves into his head. Bivol looked half-stunned from rounds 7-12 and was ineffective other than throwing weak keep-away jabs. Beterbiev landed all the harder shots.
“Bivol worked well behind his jab in the first two to three rounds, and he was getting a lot of success. When he stopped doing that and started moving a lot and allowed Beterbiev to close the distance on him, Beterbiev was allowed to bully him a bit and get more success,” said Craig Richards to Secondsout, discussing his thoughts on last Saturday night’s clash between light heavyweight champions Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol.
What Richards doesn’t mention is that Beterbiev didn’t start applying pressure until the fifth round, and when he started doing that, Bivol was forced to move. His jabbing was no longer effective because Beterbiev was ducking it and getting close, landing hard punches. Bivol couldn’t handle the power, so he started running. It was a simple fight to understand. Once Beterbiev cranked up his offense, it was a one-sided match with him coming forward and Bivol on one long retreat. He’d given up.
“He’s very clever in that some of his shots, he may not have a lot behind them, but when you know he can punch, it’ll keep someone uptight,” said Richards about Beterbiev. “So, he might not be throwing a heavy shot, but you don’t know when it’s coming. You know he can punch, so you automatically [tense up] for whatever he throws. He can kind of manipulate the rounds by throwing throwaway shots.
“I thought if Bivol could relax more in front of him and not fall for some of those tricks, I felt he’d get a lot of success. I felt that he did that in some rounds. He was slipping and standing in front of him, working off the jab, but Beterbiev is very clever.
“He kept throwing that throwaway jab, and then he threw a hard shot. Bivol was like, ‘Oh no, now I don’t know when the hard shots are coming.’ So, he [Beterbiev] mixes his power up quite well. He sustains the pressure, and when he gets going, he gets going,” Richards said about Beterbiev.
It would have been interesting to see how Bivol would have done if he’d followed Richard’s advice by staying relaxed and standing in front of Beterbiev. I don’t think it would have ended well for Bivol, but it still would have been interesting to see if he could stand in the pocket instead of surrendering the way he did.
The way Bivol gave up in the end made him look weak. If Bivol is going to fight like that in the rematch, His Excellency should save his money and fight someone like Joshua Buatsi, David Morrell, or David Benavidez because the fans won’t get their money’s worth.
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