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In October, Dmitry Bivol became the first boxer to avoid a knockout by Artur Beterbiev. On Saturday, he will try again to be the first boxer to beat Beterbiev.
Some felt Bivol did enough to achieve that feat the first time, only for the now-former champion to suffer a first professional loss in the closest of fights. In any case, Bivol insists: “I must add more.” The 34-year-old has said so repeatedly ahead of this rematch, in which the undisputed light-heavyweight titles are on the line again.
But against one of the most unforgiving punchers in boxing, “adding more” means taking potentially disastrous risks. It means Bivol crossing a dangerous divide in Riyadh, where Beterbiev barely stayed unbeaten in October. One scorecard read 114-114; the others read 115-113 and 116-112 in the 40-year-old’s favour. The Independent scored the fight a draw.
While Bivol’s claim that he must “add more” is admirable, one could argue he took enough risks and showed sufficient defence to have won the first fight. But regardless of what the boxers think, or fans and pundits, what do the numbers say?
CompuBox showed Bivol outlanding Beterbiev in five of the 12 rounds, with Beterbiev landing more punches in six rounds, and one round drawn. While that specific statistic favours Beterbiev by the narrowest margin, the gap is even closer than you’d first think: in three of the five rounds where Beterbiev outlanded Bivol, he did so by just one punch; similarly, Bivol outlanded Beterbiev by a single punch in one of his “superior” rounds.
There was, however, a greater divide when it came to punch accuracy. By that metric, Bivol was sharper than Beterbiev in 11 of the 12 rounds – and comfortably so in most of them. These stats back up the notion that the judges preferred Beterbiev’s forward pressure, even when he wasn’t landing effectively, to Bivol’s sharpshooting.
But Beterbiev, with 20 KOs from his 21 unanswered wins, surely landed more power punches? Or landed power punches with greater efficiency, at least? The answer to the first question is “yes”, the answer to the second is “no”. Beterbiev landed 90 power punches to Bivol’s 84, so not a drastic lead, and he threw them with 29.4 per cent accuracy, compared to Bivol’s 50 per cent.
Of course, these numbers don’t tell the full story of the fight, as intriguing as they are. Perhaps a key stat, as CompuBox notes, is that Bivol outlanded Beterbiev 33-23 in power punches over the first six rounds, before Beterbiev turned the tables 67-51 in the final six. And in the final two rounds specifically, Beterbiev landed 29 power punches to Bivol’s 19.
That supports the “eye-test” consensus that Bivol surrendered the final two rounds. You might not have felt those rounds were enough to cost Bivol victory – even Beterbiev and his team looked downbeat after the final bell – but the judges did.
All three of them gave the final two rounds to Beterbiev, and if Bivol had won just one of those rounds, the fight would have been a split-decision draw; Bivol would have won it on one scorecard (which read 114-114 on the night), drawn it on another (the 115-113), and lost by a slimmer margin on the third (the 116-112). If Bivol had won both of these rounds, he’d have won the bout by the same score that Beterbiev did in reality: 116-112, 115-113, 114-114.
So, Bivol accepts he must take more risks in the rematch, to ensure he leaves no doubt – regardless of which judges officiate the fight. Leaving any doubt would be the greatest risk of all, he might argue.
As mentioned earlier, though, Bivol was brave in the first contest, and he only appeared to face genuine danger a few times. He was never truly rocked (at worst he might have been briefly stunned), although he was forced to retreat and cover up more than he would have wanted.
This is all worth considering ahead of this rematch, as is one final stat: Beterbiev’s age has ticked to 40 since the first fight. Admittedly, age has not visibly held him back in recent fights, nor did a knee surgery last spring. Sure, Beterbiev started slowly against Bivol, but his second-half surge was enough to convince the judges. Yet if he has faded even slightly, victory may be lost – so narrow were the margins last time.
Either way, the numbers behind Beterbiev vs Bivol 1 are dizzying. Let’s see what maths are required after the rematch, or if either man can produce a punch worth more than any statistic.
