Dmitry Bivol believes a win in his debut on Saudi Arabian soil Saturday night will lead to the higher-profile fight he really wants next year in Riyadh.
Bivol informed BoxingScene.com that Turki Alalshikh has assured his handlers that The General Entertainment Authority of Saudi Arabia wants to bring boxing’s biggest light heavyweight fight – Bivol versus Artur Beterbiev – to Kingdom Arena in 2024. Transforming the long-awaited showdown between Bivol (21-0, 11 KOs) and Beterbiev (19-0, 19 KOs) into reality will require Bivol to defeat England’s Lyndon Arthur on the Anthony Joshua-Otto Wallin undercard Saturday night at Kingdom Arena and Beterbiev to beat another Brit, Callum Smith, on January 13 at Videotron Centre in Quebec City, Canada.
“When we signed the contract against Lyndon Arthur, we discussed a fight against Beterbiev,” Bivol told BoxingScene.com. “And they are really interested in making this fight happen. They want this fight. They told us, like, ‘We want to make this fight happen.’ ”
The General Entertainment Authority of Saudi Arabia has the financial wherewithal to fully fund Beterbiev-Bivol. Their anticipated purse demands, along with political pressure since Russia invaded Ukraine that prohibited them from bringing this bout between the Russian-born Beterbiev and Bivol, a longtime Russian citizen, to Russia have helped prevent Beterbiev-Bivol from happening.
Beterbiev, who owns the IBF, WBC and WBO 175-pound crowns, told BoxingScene.com recently that he doesn’t think Bivol truly wants to fight him. Bivol assured his rival that is the furthest thing from the truth.
“I think he’s an adult,” Bivol said. “He understands how things happen, yeah? He understands that this fight couldn’t happen, and not because of me. He knows it, but maybe he wants to make some promoting of the fight. A lot of my opponents said I was scared of them. [Gilberto] Ramirez talked a lot, that I was ducking him. A lot of fighters say that. [Sullivan] Barrera said I don’t want to fight him and things like this. But it doesn’t matter what they said. It matters what will happen in the ring, and that’s it. Ramirez knew why we couldn’t fight. Ramirez knew, but he told other things.”
Bivol beat Ramirez (45-1, 30 KOs) relatively easily in November 2022, when Bivol won a 12-round unanimous decision at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. He’ll fight for the first time against Arthur (23-1, 16 KOs) in the 13 months since he made a mandatory defense of his WBA belt against Mexico’s Ramirez.
Beterbiev, 38, and Bivol, 33, met face to face late in October in Riyadh, where they made promotional appearances the week of the Tyson Fury-Francis Ngannou heavyweight fight at Kingdom Arena. There they spoke with Bob Arum, Beterbiev’s primary promoter, about putting together a fight that would crown boxing’s first fully unified light heavyweight champion of the four-belt era.
“He wants this fight, of course,” Bivol said in reference to Beterbiev. “As an athlete, he wants it. And I think as an adult person who’s in boxing he understands why this fight couldn’t happen before. And now he understands that this fight could happen with the Saudis. We were even talking with Bob Arum in Saudi. I came to shake his hand in Saudi and he told me like, ‘Now we could make this fight happen, with these guys in Saudi.’ I said, ‘Yeah, Bob, it’s great. It’s what I want.’ And he’s like, ‘Artur wants this fight, too. And we will work on it.’ ”
Those discussions made Bivol confident that he’ll finally battle Beterbiev for light heavyweight supremacy in 2024.
“Before I couldn’t see who could make this fight,” Bivol said. “Because I had asked my manager, ‘I wanna fight with Beterbiev. Who could make this fight?’ He’s like, ‘I don’t know who could make this fight because you are not popular enough, you and Beterbiev, to make this fight happen. And you have your contract with Matchroom, and he has his contract with Top Rank. It’s hard now to make it.’ But now I see that the Saudis could make it, of course.”
Bivol is a 25-1 favorite, according to DraftKings sportsbook, to successfully defend his WBA belt against Arthur in one of seven fights on the Joshua-Wallin undercard. Coverage of the “Day Of Reckoning” is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. GMT in the United Kingdom (£19.99) and 11 a.m. ET in the United States ($39.99).
Montreal’s Beterbiev is a 4-1 favorite over Liverpool’s Smith (29-1, 21 KOs) in a 12-round main event ESPN will televise next month.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.