Battle of the Beasts
This is the fight to kick the New Year off with a bang!
Two huge punchers collide for the WBC, IBF, WBO World light-heavyweight titles which champion Artur Beterbiev (18-0, 18KO) will defend to WBO #1 contender Anthony Yarde (23-2, 22KO).
The 175lbs heavy hitters will do battle at the OVO Arena Wembley on Saturday, January 28, 2023, live on BT Sport.
Canadian-based Russian Beterbiev comes to the UK for the first time in his career to offer Londoner Yarde a shot at his belts as well as the home advantage.
One has a 100% KO ratio and the other has knocked out all but one of his victims… so this is going to be fireworks for the fans!
Amateur Background
Yarde is well known for only experiencing 12 amateur bouts, 11 of which he won by KO, but advanced into the pros having only started boxing at 18, after his dream of signing for QPR ended with an injury, and blasted all but one of his first 10 opponents away in rounds one or two.
For Beterbiev, it was the exact opposite, starting boxing early in his life to accumulate an incredible record of 295-10, winning two Europeans and a World championship, with scalps over Oleksandr Usyk, Sergey Kovalev and Michael Hunter.
The Champion
The undefeated Russian’s clubbing left and right hooks are so powerful they are able to just crash right through any guard. His shots are mostly short and potent. You won’t catch Beterbiev throwing wide, looping hooks; they’re short, stiff, crisp and accurate, and he punches through his opponents, like Mike Tyson.
A few opponents, such as Callum Johnson and Joe Smith Jr., were able to back Beterbiev up early, but were both put down on the canvas within three minutes of time. Let it be noted that Smith Jr. was a tough cookie who had never been knocked down before in his career and had fought through broken jaws twice during previous wars.
Two opponents have been able to put Beterbiev down; ironically the second to do so was known as ‘The One’. Brit boxer Callum Johnson landed a powerful short left hook when the pair were exchanging up close in their 2018 clash. Defending his IBF belt for the first time, Artur was back to his feet instantly, but he was noticeably hurt, and the pair fought hammer and tongs for the rest of the bout, which only went up to the fourth round. Johnson was able to land a lot of big shots on Beterbiev, but there was more coming back, then two right hooks to the head dropped the Brit for a second and final time at the end of the fourth.
The first knockdown Beterbiev suffered in his career came in 2014, against an unbeaten 15-0 Jeff Page Jr. It was a slightly scrappy knockdown with the Kansas man pushing Beterbiev in the face with his left hand while his own head was being pulled down, then he came up with a straight right, which was a bit lucky to have the effect it had due to Beterbiev walking backwards while tangled up, landing on him as his legs were squared up.
He came straight back in the next round to knock Page down three times to win in round two. Page had a great first round where he kept the distance between them, was constantly mobile, moving sided to side whilst darting in to land long range shots when he could. Watching that fight back makes you envision Dmitry Bivol and the success he could potentially have against Beterbiev.
His 19th fight will be just is second outside of North America, having fought once in Russia in 2021, and it comes against hard-hitting Hackney man Yarde, who is dangerous, powerful, explosive, sharp, and flashy.
The Challenger
Trained by Tunde Ajayi, Yarde has good head movement and quick feet, but he can be caught due to his style of boxing, holding his left arm down low in a sling. He has a decent chin, despite being stopped before, and will fight fire with fire when called to do so; he will not shy away from a toe to toe exchange against Beterbiev.
Against Kovalev in the biggest fight of his career ‘til now, Yarde was outboxed and outlanded for the first half of the fight but then he had a good seventh and eighth round, where he was maybe one or two punches away from stopping the Russian in his own backyard. But the champion came back strongly in the championship rounds, where Yarde was all but spent and had little left in the tank to fight back with, taking big right hands until a straight left jab knocked him down and out in the 11th round, with less than four minutes remaining in the bout.
That experience will only do him good in his second world title challenge, the same way his loss to Lyndon Arthur has helped to improve his physical and mental abilities.
The tall, rangy Arthur, with his slick, superb jab and backfoot boxing ability was always going to be a tough and tricky contestant for Yarde, who got his tactics and workrate wrong to find himself on the reverse side of a split decision.
In the rematch, exactly one year later in December 2021, he changed his strategy correctly, no longer exchanging jabs on the outside like in the first fight, but instead getting in close to hammer home uppercuts and hooks with his man trapped on the ropes unable to dance away this time. With that fourth round knockout, he announced himself back onto the world title scene.
His 22 KOs have come within 74 rounds, averaging a stoppage every 3.3 rounds, which is a round quicker than Beterbiev, but between them they have 40 KOs from 43 bouts!
Betting Odds
Despite the youth and home advantage, Yarde is still a 5/1 underdog with Betway and champion Beterbiev is 1/10 to retain his titles. The odds for a draw are 22/1 because no one expects this to reach the final bell.
Predictions
In the three fights before the second-round demolition of Joe Smith Jr.; Marcus Browne, Adam Deines and Oleksandr Gvozdyk all took Beterbiev past the ninth round, so I would fancy Yarde to be amongst the same cailbre as those guys to be able to do the same. Of course, the fight could be completely different – Hagler-Hearns springs to mind!
I would hope to see Yarde box intelligently to counter Beterbiev behind his guard regularly, as opposed to engaging in a risky shootout. For me, a firefight with Beterbiev will only ever see one winner. A toe to toe exchange could well see the Russian knocked down like he was against Johnson, but it only spurs the Chechen on more. Two knockdowns in his career proves the fearsome Russian is still only human.
I think it’s hard to call at what stage of the fight a knockout will happen, but it will happen. I would like to see Yarde reach the championship rounds in what should be an incredibly entertaining fight, but I do believe that Beterbiev wins by knockout at some point. When it comes to being in the trenches, Beterbiev can draw upon the experience of over 300 amateur bouts, two Olympic Games, national, European and World gold medals
If I was forced to put on a bet, I might go for something like Beterbiev to be knocked down during the fight but to win by KO.
