There's the next big title unification boxing match this weekend, and it's in the light heavyweight division.
WBC and IBF champion At Madison Square Garden's Hulu Theater Artur Beterbiev (17-0, 17 KOs) take on WBO champion Joe Smith Jr, New York native (28-3, 22 KOs), in a battle of two knockout artists. The winner would be one belt away from undisputed status, with Dmitry Bivol still in possession of the WBA title after his impressive win over Canelo Alvarez.
There isn't much more to say when two aggressive power punchers go to one another. Will it be competitive? But it will also be fun. Let's dive into how we got here.
Beterbiev fought both light heavyweight and heavyweight as an amateur star. To give you an idea of how legit he was, he beat Sergey Kovalev in the semi-finals of the 2007 European Championships. He had close fights at the World Championships and the 2012 Olympics but ultimately lost to the reigning unified heavyweight champion. Heavy, Oleksandr Usyk. He won a world gold medal in 2009 and two at the European level in 2006 and 2010. The Russian eventually moved to Montreal—he has since become good friends with Georges St-Pierre—and embarked on his professional career. Unlike many other professionals, Beterbievhe didn't waste much time preparing for fights. In his sixth pro fight, he had demolished former champion Tavoris Cloud and captured the vacant IBF title in his twelfth fight against Enrico Koelling.
Beterbiev was scared when he fell to the canvas against Callum Johnson, but he pulled off a knockout victory in just four rounds for his first title defence. He outclassed and sent Oleksandr Gvozdyk into retirement with a 10th-round KJO in their WBC-IBF unification, and in the last two bouts, Beterbiev has knocked out Adam Deines and Marcus Browne. Unfortunately, promotion issues and injuries have played a part in his lack of a consistently active schedule.
For the most part, Smith Jr was a club-level fighter whose only notable win was an Otis Griffin in 2014. Two years later, he was called up for an NBC primetime main event against former title challenger Andrzej Fonfara, who was a great favourite. to win in a partisan crowd for the Polish boxer in Chicago. Instead of an easy victory, Fonfara was knocked out in the round in a stunning upset. That monumental victory was soon followed by sending Bernard Hopkins into retirement by knocking out the 51-year-old. His momentum stalled after dropping a decision to Sullivan Barrera. Still, two fights later, he challenged Dmitry Bivol and, although he lost a lopsided decision to the Russian, rocked him with a big right hand.
Since the Bivol loss, Smith has won four in a row, including a massive KO of former champion Eleider Alvarez, a somewhat controversial but gruelling decision over Maxim Vlasov to win the vacant WBO belt, and then a TKO over replacement Steve Geffrard. on short notice after Callum Johnson was removed with a positive test for COVID-19.
This one is easy to choose, and at the same time, it is not. Beterbiev is the better fighter with a much wider variety of offensive tools than Smith, whose money punch is that right hand. Smith has a reach advantage and does much of his best work at range, but in close quarters Beterbiev is an outright mauler with punishing body shots and a constant ability to take advantage of hard shots inside. I'm not sure Smith can handle Beterbiev 's pressure, and if he sets up for the knockout blow, he could find himself eating fast breaks and looking silly. It's hard to ignore how brutal Vlasov's fight was for Smith and how Beterbiev is much better at drawing his opponents into his type of fight.
The betting has Beterbiev a firm favourite at -750 against Smith's underdog tag of +500. To be sure, Beterbiev should be a sizable favourite… but with Smith's power and Beterbiev, not precisely a tremendous defensive fighter, he might be intrigued by that Smith line. He is currently -400 to finish inside the range, which is not surprising. Beterbiev is going to show his overall power and boxing ability once again.
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