Beterbiev beats Bivol to become undisputed light heavyweight champ

Artur Beterbiev defeated Dmitry Bivol via majority decision (114-114, 115-113, 116-112) to capture the undisputed light heavyweight championship Saturday evening at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Beterbiev is the first undisputed 175-pound champion of the four-belt era and the first since Roy Jones Jr. held all three major titles in 2000. Beterbiev put his WBC, IBF, and WBO belts on the line, while Bivol risked his WBA championship.

Beterbiev, who entered with a 100% knockout rate, went the distance for the first time in his career and is now 21-0 as a professional.

Bivol, meanwhile, suffered his first career loss, falling to 23-1.

Seven years in the making, the highly anticipated fight marked a meeting between two of the world's six best pound-for-pound boxers. Beterbiev and Bivol had been champions in the light heavyweight division since 2017 and ran through their opposition. However, the politics of boxing's sanctioning bodies and promoters prevented the two Russians from squaring off until now.

Beterbiev and Bivol were originally scheduled to fight on June 1 in Riyadh, but the matchup was postponed after Beterbiev suffered a knee injury in training.

Saturday's main event was competitive and could've gone either way: Bivol displayed crisp boxing, but Beterbiev swayed the judges with constant aggression. Bivol edged out Beterbiev 142-137 in total punches, according to CompuBox. Beterbiev was critical of his performance and vowed to "be better."

"I feel not bad," Beterbiev said in his postfight interview. "I did not do good today. I want more good boxing today. More quality. I don't know why, but I didn't like this fight. I'll be better one day."

Both Beterbiev and Bivol expressed interest in a rematch. Beterbiev said that if Turki Alalshikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia's General Entertainment Authority, wants to put a second fight together, "we're gonna do it."

"If I have this chance, yes," Bivol said when asked about a rematch. "It is my dream to be undisputed."

Bivol was humble in defeat, saying Beterbiev "deserves" to be the undisputed champion and that he wasn't sure he had done enough to win on the scorecards.

"I don't know," Beterbiev said when asked if he was surprised the judges didn't give him the victory. "I did my job. I felt that I could make better - I always could make better. It's just some opinions of judges. Congratulations, Artur. He won."

Bivol had a strong start to the entertaining, high-level bout, fighting behind his jab and landing slick combinations to stay busier than his opponent. Beterbiev's relentless pressure started getting to Bivol in the fourth round and the tide turned in the Russian-Canadian's favor in the fifth and sixth.

Bivol responded well in the seventh, tagging Beterbiev with a left hand before Beterbiev tried to win back the round with a swarm of punches.

Beterbiev finished strong, taking the last three rounds on all three judges' scorecards to secure the decision.

"This was a tough fight because Dmitry is a world champion too," Beterbiev said. "He has good skills, better than me. But today Allah chose me."

Beterbiev added that he believed he did enough to win but still felt uncomfortable at the end of the fight "because usually I'm not waiting for the bell."

He finishes his 2024 campaign with two victories after scoring a seventh-round TKO of Callum Smith in January. Beterbiev, who turns 40 in three months, is from Russia but lives in Montreal.

Bivol defended the WBA light heavyweight title 12 straight times before finally dropping it to Beterbiev. The 33-year-old Russian was coming off a sixth-round TKO of Malik Zinad, who replaced Beterbiev at the June 1 event in Riyadh. That was Bivol's first stoppage win in 10 fights.

Bivol had been a top five pound-for-pound boxer since beating the sport's biggest star, Canelo Álvarez, in 2022.