Artur Beterbiev’s 92-year-old promoter understandably thinks that the unbeaten light heavyweight champion can continue competing at boxing’s elite level for several years.
The Russian-born, Quebec-based Beterbiev will turn 39 on January 21. He has been beset by various injuries in recent years as well, but Bob Arum anticipates Beterbiev becoming boxing’s first fully unified 175-pound champion of the four-belt era before 2024 ends.
The founder of Top Rank Inc. believes Beterbiev will knock out Callum Smith on Saturday night and finally fight unbeaten WBA champ Dmitry Bivol later this year.
Injuries and a since-settled legal dispute with former promoter Yvon Michel has limited Beterbiev to 19 fights since he made his pro debut in June 2013. Arum feels, though, that has helped preserve Beterbiev’s body.
“Age is not a relevant factor with Beterbiev,” Arum told BoxingScene.com. “If you’re 39 and you’ve had 40 or 50 fights, age matters. If you’re 39 and you’ve had 19 fights, you know, in effect your body is that of a younger guy. It’s really wear and tear on the body. So, you saw [George] Foreman fought way past 45 because he had 10 years where he didn’t fight at all. It’s like a car. You can have a car, an older car, but if you don’t use it very much it lasts longer.”
Arum also acknowledged that he would’ve preferred to watch Beterbiev (19-0, 19 KOs) fight more often in recent years.
Knee, rib and shoulder injuries have postponed various Beterbiev bouts both before and after Arum’s company got involved in his career. Most recently, an infection in Beterbiev’s jaw caused a 4½-month postponement of his fight with Smith, the mandatory challenger for his WBC belt.
Beterbiev, 38, and Smith, 33, initially were scheduled to fight August 19 at Videotron Centre in Quebec City, Canada. They’ll box at the same venue for Beterbiev’s IBF, WBC and WBO championships in a 12-round main event ESPN will televise.
“It is what it is,” Arum said. “Having injuries is nobody’s fault. You can’t fight if you’re injured, and he tends to have a lot of injuries. Whether he overdoes it in training, I don’t know, but they’re legitimate injuries.”
Liverpool’s Smith (29-1, 21 KOs) has lost only a one-sided, 12-round unanimous decision to Canelo Alvarez (60-2-2, 39 KOs). The Mexican superstar dominated Smith in their fight for the WBA and WBC super middleweight titles in December 2020 at Alamodome in San Antonio.
The younger, hard-hitting Smith is 2-0, including two knockouts, in a pair of light heavyweight fights since Alvarez beat him.
“It’s a tough fight,” Arum said, “but that’s what [Beterbiev is] gonna need, tough fights, because we hope sometime this year to do a unification fight with Bivol. It’ll definitely happen, as long as he beats Callum Smith. It would be tremendous. The money is very high and it’s a fight that should happen.”
ESPN’s telecast is scheduled to start at 10 p.m. ET on Saturday night. Cameroon’s Christian Mbilli (25-0, 21 KOs), a Montreal resident who is the number contender for Alvarez’s WBA and WBC 168-pound championships, is set to face Australia’s Rohan Murdock (27-2, 19 KOs) in the 10-round opener of the network’s doubleheader.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.