Following his majority decision loss to Artur Beterbiev over the weekend, Dmitry Bivol sits down with Marcos Villegas of Fight Hub TV to discuss his thoughts on the fight and he breaks it down matter of factly while making comparisons to his experience with Canelo Alvarez. Check out some excerpts below.
Bivol on how he’s feeling after the close loss to Beterbiev
“I feel good now. I slept. I went through hard training camp and now I’m just thinking about my future. Today we will see His Excellency, I hope he has some plans for me — a rematch or something else. I will see, I just want to look forward.”
On what most sticks out in his mind about the fight
“It was good fight. It was nice, good experience. I was fighting against one of the dangerous fighter and I feel like I did some good performance but I could be much more better and I have some thoughts about where I can improve more.
“I want to improve more with my movement. I didn’t move enough, I felt I had to move more. I had to more counter punches. I just need to add more. I felt some moments where I could do it but I was little bit careful.”
On if Beterbiev was what he expected him to be in the ring
“Yeah, he was very similar what I was expected from him. You know, a lot of fighters who’s fighting with him, with Canelo, their emotions was against them. A lot of things depends on your emotions, on our emotions which we are feeling, because emotions could not let you realize all your potential. And the aura around Beterbiev is like ‘he’s monster’ and this and that. Some people will be scared of it but I was excited, I was trying to use right emotions about it.”
On being excited to face Beterbiev
“Because you are going against this like monster. Yeah, ‘who’s going?’ Only me, and I could deal with him. It’s exciting, you know.”
On how he’d rate Beterbiev’s power
“Hard punch, nothing else. You know, he’s not about ‘he’s has heavy punch and it’s very dangerous.’ No. He’s about how strong he is and he’s not only one punch. When he’s trying to [throw] combinations, all punches in the combination are heavy. I could compare with like Canelo, yeah. He put all his energy, all his power on single punch. And, yeah, maybe sometime single punch he’s harder, Canelo, than Beterbiev.
“Beterbiev was more close and compact. But if you ask them let’s do like five punches, Beterbiev every punch will be hard. With Canelo maybe the first hard and then not. Both of them are strong but Beterbiev is bigger and he’s born strong.
“Canelo, to land his punch he was doing like from the distance, he was trying to put all his energy on. Beterbiev is not doing this in the ring. But if we ask him to do it maybe his punch is harder, but he is not using it…Beterbiev is not trying to land hardest punch with full of his power, but Canelo is trying.”
On what his game plan was for Beterbiev
“My favorite fighter is Sugar Ray Leonard. I like Ali fights. And of course my plan was moving a lot because I was watching a lot of Ray Leonard fights before this fight, repeating. Hagler vs Leonard. Duran vs Leonard, second fight. And I was impressed how Leonard was moving all twelve rounds without stopping. Sometimes if he stop, he do combination, and he move again. He wasn’t stand[ing] against Hagler.
“And if he stand against Hagler, it’s not reasonable. You cannot fight against guy who is stronger than you. You just have to accept it. Yes, he’s stronger, but this is boxing, this is not Kyokushinkai where you are standing in front of each other and you’re just hitting. You can move. And in our boxing gyms in Russia we’re usually saying ‘if your opponent is fighter, you should box with him. If your opponent is the boxer, you should fight with him.’
“With Beterbiev we have to agree that he is the strongest puncher and man in light heavyweight division. I agree with this. But it doesn’t mean he’s the best one. We have another key how to deal with it, this is boxing. This is why I love the sport. If somebody is strong, you can you his speed against him. Is somebody has good speed, you have to use your brain how to deal with it, have to use your timing. Because sometimes I see boxers, they are so fast, but I can use my timing and his speed will not be his advantage.”
On his impression on how the fight was going during in real time
“I felt I was landing good punches. I felt that I was pressured by him but I didn’t understand how people could see it, how they could [perceive] it…for me I didn’t feel too much in danger but sometimes I felt that now I could be in trouble, ‘I have to be focused much more, move forward, don’t let him too much pressure you, just show him that his punches is not affecting you so much, use your guard.’ I felt I had good episodes, I felt he had good episodes, but I didn’t counting how many I did it, is it enough for win or not.
“And in my philosophy, I’m a warrior and everything should be perfect. Everything what I am doing, I have to do it well or I shouldn’t do it at all if I’m not doing it well. And this fight I didn’t do well. Maybe it’s enough to be winner, maybe it’s not enough to be winner, but I didn’t do it perfect, how I want to do it.”
