WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol 21-0 (11) will have his hands full if a fight between WBC, WBO and IBF heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev 18-0 (18) comes off.
That’s the opinion of renowned trainer Abel Sanchez.
Russian Bivol, 31, is coming off a lopsided 12-round unanimous decision win over Mexico’s Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez 44-1 (30) at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Saturday night. The scores were 118-110 and 117-111 twice.
The victory comes six months after Bivol’s eye-catching unanimous decision win over Mexican superstar and undisputed super middleweight champion Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez 58-2-2 (39) at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The 37-year-old Beterbiev, who was born in Russia but boxes out of Canada, was last in action in June when he added the WBO belt to his hardware with a second-round knockout of Joe Smith Jr 28-4 (22) at New York’s famed Madison Square Garden.
Sanchez, who previous trained current WBA and IBF middleweight champion Gennadiy Golovkin 42-2-1 (37) – who boxed a trilogy with Alvarez and went 0-2-1 – has admitted to underestimating Bivol, but is not prepared to write Beterbien off.
“I predicted wrongly that Zurdo would be a little too big for him, but Bivol proved once again that he’s one of the elite, if not the elite fighter, in those weight divisions,” Sanchez said to FightHubTV.
“Beterbiev is a difficult fight because he’s a big puncher and he’ll be able to take everything. Listen, Zurdo was a little too slow and not smart enough for him.
“Beterbiev doesn’t have the credentials that Bivol does. Bivol, I’ve always said, was a Gennadiy Golovkin, only 15 pounds heavier and a little younger.
“That’s a difficult fight. I’d hate to go against [Bivol] again because he seems to have some of that talent that is built into some of those European exceptional fighters.
“He’s not going to overpower him. He’s just not going to allow Beterbiev to do his thing. Bivol is so skilled that he doesn’t allow guys to get into their rhythm, not allow guys to do what they want to do, and he’s big enough to where Beterbiev won’t be the bigger man than he is.
“I thought that was going to be the case for Zurdo being bigger and longer, but Bivol seems to have the tools to beat guys like that. I’ve seen him spar. He’s sparred with some of my guys.
“To be honest, he didn’t show me that much in sparring, but then again, that’s sparring. In the fights, he seems to do really well. The only reason I thought Zurdo was going to have a better time or an easier time was because of his length and because of his size.
“I don’t think people give Canelo enough credit for really the talent that he is,” Sanchez added.