Undisputed light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev barely edged challenger Dmitry Bivol in October, scoring a majority decision win.
Beterbiev who has a record of 21 wins with 20 KO’s, Bivol who has 23 wins, 1 loss and 12 KO’s will meet in a rematch this Sunday headlining a stacked Riyadh Season show in Saudi Arabia billed as “The Last Crescendo.”
Beterbiev says they are ready for Bivol to start strong from the beginning, as this is one of the things that they have thought about.
He says they had some different sparring partners this time as the experience from the first fight allowed him to work on some things with his team and tweak some things.
Some observers argued that Bivol did enough to win the fight, seven rounds to five, or at worse, came away with a draw. Bivol, however, gave himself a critical assessment.
Bivol says he cannot change anything that already happened as it makes one weak, and he is looking forward to the second fight.
Although Bivol ended Beterbiev’s career-long stoppage streak, he doesn’t believe that he needs the knockout to equal the score and set up the trilogy.
Beterbiev vs Bivol will be the main card supported by the heavyweight bout of Daniel Dubois vs Joseph Parker this Sunday.
[Source: The Ring Magazine]
