Artur Beterbiev is a methodical, Cartesian boxer. Some people blame him for it, but he doesn’t box out of passion. For him, it is a ‘job‘ and his unification fight against Dmitrii Bivol, this Saturday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is only the logical continuation of his business plan.
“Never in his career, even with his opponents who have made harsher remarks about him, has he taken a fight personally. It’s his job, it’s not his passion. He does it in a very disciplined way. He puts everything on the table. We look at how we can do things as professionally as possible,” declared his coach, Marc Ramsay, joined in Saudi Arabia by The Canadian Press on Tuesday.
And facing Bivol (22-0, 11 KOs), Beterbiev (20-0, 20 KOs) risks having his hands full. Firstly because of the quality of his opponent – “the best so far”, says Ramsay –, but above all because of the stakes, when no less than five belts will be distributed at the end of the evening.
Beterbiev puts his International Boxing Federation (IBF), World Boxing Council (WBC) and World Boxing Organization (WBO) light heavyweight belts on the line; Bivol brings his titles from the International Boxing Organization (IBO) and the World Boxing Association (WBA).
“It’s a major fight, both in terms of the scale of the event and the pressure that comes with it,” summed up Ramsay. We can see that Bivol is the best boxer we have faced so far. It’s the same for him. But when you focus on the work at hand, it’s the same thing. He is an adversary with strengths and weaknesses that we must marry to our strengths and weaknesses. »
“We have to try to bring it to our field,” continued the veteran coach. Whether it’s a four-rounder at the Montreal Casino or a world unification fight, going to a boxing match is going to a boxing match. It’s only the environment that’s really different. »
This “terrain”, for the Montrealer, consists of getting the Russian to evade his impeccable technique to deliver a more “animal”, less structured fight.
“It’s up to us to play our cards right,” Ramsay stressed. He’s a guy who is technical, even mechanical, who does several repetitions. He’s really good at what he does. We know he can box. We know that Artur can box. But we know that Artur can fight; let’s see if Bivol can fight too. »
Bivol is a perfect example of the methodical style that has been taught in Russia for years, even since the country was still called the Soviet Union. But Beterbiev, born in Kasshaviourt, Russia, knows this school well, he who did his amateur boxing while learning this art. Ramsay, who always does everything possible to prepare his foals as best as possible, drew on his pugilist’s old contact book for this last camp.
“We relied more on Artur’s amateur coach, Nurjpasha Talibov. This is not a first; we had already done this in the past. He knows Bivol well, and he’s a guy who teaches Bivol boxing, which has a very ‘Russian’ style. He teaches this style every day. It was important for me to hear what he had to say about this boxing. »
“It’s very unusual among pros, Bivol’s style. (Sergey) Kovalev had a bit of that style, but he had so much power that it distorted it. There, it’s really the Russian boxing school, but 100% at the technical level,” added Ramsay.
So how do you prepare to face a boxer of this type?
“We hire an immigration lawyer and we bring Russians to Montreal! That’s what we did. Several of our training partners were from Russia. We also used our international contacts to bring partners to Riyadh. We have been here for two weeks, and we still had some preparation to do,” explained the coach.
This duel at the top has been a long time coming. First scheduled for June 1, it had to be postponed due to a torn meniscus suffered by Beterbiev in training. Now that he’s back on track, will this fight be Beterbiev’s last?
“To be honest, I have no idea. We go fight by fight and all our concentration is on Saturday’s fight. Before, it was Callum Smith, and before him, it was (Anthony) Yarde,” recalled Ramsay, who will be accompanied by Luc Vincent-Ouellet, John Scully and Talibov in Betebiev’s corner on Saturday.
“We take the time to sit down after each fight and see where Artur is at. As long as his metabolism is going well, he doesn’t have any major health problems and he wants to do it, we will continue. But it’s clear that we don’t make very long-term plans,” he summarized.
This fight is expected to get underway around 6 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Saturday. It will be available on DAZN in Canada.
