Fans believe promoter Eddie Hearn is playing mind games, trying to throw unified light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev off his game this week so that his fighter Callum Smith can defeat him, snatch his three titles from him, and face WBA champion Dmitry Bivol for the undisputed championship in Saudi Arabia.
Mind Games on Display
Matchroom Boxing promoter Hearn talked his head off today about Beterbiev’s atypical VADA test results for his December 6th. Beterbiev never other tests came up negative on December 21st and January 3rd.
Hearn has also repeatedly predicted that Callum will KO Beterbiev with a single punch and face-plant him on the canvas. The fans believe Hearn is trying to get Beterbiev so mentally upset that he’ll fight scared or too aggressively, which would give Smith a chance of winning.
Can Hearn Psych Beterbiev out?
You can argue that Callum doesn’t have a prayer in this fight without Hearn’s mind tricks because he lacks talent and is the same limited, robotic fighter that he’s always been.
Smith (29-1, 21 KOs), who has fought padded his record with a couple of stiffs in the last three years since being humiliated by Canelo Alvarez in 2020, can make an absurd amount of money if he successfully defeats Beterbiev (19-0, 19 KOs) on Saturday night in their main event contest on ESPN at the Centre Videotron in Quebec City.
The mind games that Hearn is playing won’t help Smith if he looks the way he did in his last fight against Mathieu Bauderlique and in his loss to Canelo. Smith spent a lot of time on the ropes in both of those fights, and it was clear that he hadn’t learned his lesson.
“Yeah, you saw him last 36 minutes against Canelo Alvarez when he was really weight drained, but Beterbiev is a dangerous guy,” said Eddie Hearn to the media when asked if Callum Smith can last the full twelve rounds against IBF, WBC & WBO light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev on Saturday.
“The most difficult thing about Artur Beterbiev is work rate. He doesn’t let you breathe. I think Callum Smith is bigger one-punch knockout, than Artur, but Beterbiev is very heavy-handed, he throws a lot of punches, and he wears you down.
“He hits you around the side of the head, the back of the head, and the body. You can’t afford to take that for 36 minutes. You saw that against Oleksandr Gvozdyk. It was very similar. He was doing ok in the fight, but it was just in the end.
“You see a fighter that can’t take anymore, so you have to be aggressive. I don’t think this fight goes more than nine rounds, eight or nine rounds because Callum will be taking chances. He has to,” Hearn predicts