Artur Beterbiev is still too good for Canelo Alvarez at 40, and would beat him if he gets any ideas about moving up to 175 after his ‘Fight of the Century’ against Terence Crawford on September 13th.
Beterbiev’s Power Punching Advantage
The punching power that Artur possesses would put Canelo in a position of having to defend against those shots. This wouldn’t be like his three fights against Gennadiy Golovkin, in which he made him wary of attacking with his powerful counter-punching. Beterbiev would be willing to take Canelo’s best shots to land his own.
It would be entertaining for the fans to see Canelo (63-2-2, 39 KOs) match up against Beterbiev in a battle at 175. Even if Alvarez loses to Crawford, a fight against Artur at light heavyweight would create a lot of interest. It would be a match between two power punchers that would stand and fight.
Beterbiev has been waiting for a rematch with Dmitry Bivol, but it’s obvious that he’s being aged out with the fight being delayed. That’s what he believes, and many fans have the same opinion.
The Bivol Trilogy Delay
Due to the problems he had in his two clashes with Beterbiev, Bivol appears to be pushing the trilogy fight back. It’s a waste of time for Beterbiev to continue to wait. He’s better off moving on toward fights against Canelo, David Benavidez, and David Morrell.
Beterbiev (21-1, 20 KOs) is the fight to make for Canelo because it wouldn’t be a Tom and Jerry type of clash like it would if he pursued a rematch with Dmitry Bivol. Canelo lost to Bivol in 2022 by a 12-round unanimous decision in a fight that involved a lot of retreating movement by Dmitry.
Artur’s Post-Injury Performance
Despite losing his last fight to Bivol by a questionable 12-round majority decision, Beterbiev is still arguably the #1 fighter in the 175-lb division. If you count the rounds in which Beterbiev got the better of Bivol, he won seven rounds.
What is impressive about that is he was coming off knee surgery for a blown-out meniscus only months earlier. This wasn’t Artur at 100%, yet he still fought well enough to deserve the victory.
The scores were 115-113, 116-112 for Bivol, and 114-114.