By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
It’s finally going down.
After years of barking at each other about who’s boxing’s best light heavyweight champion of the world, Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev are set to square off for the undisputed crown of the division on June 1, 2024, to be held in Saudi Arabia.
It was Turki Alalshikh, the chairman of the General Entertainment Authority of Saudi Arabia, who bared the exciting news for the fight fans.
This has been one of the sport’s most highly-anticipated matchups aside from the welterweight unification bout between Errol Spence Jr. and Terence Crawford last July 29, 2023.
The same as the Spence-Crawford rivalry, both Beterbiev and Bivol are still undefeated fighters and are still in their prime.
Bivol made noise two years ago when he pulled off a masterful performance against the super middleweight king of the sport, Canelo Alvarez, via a unanimous decision victory.
The Russian slugger entered the fight as the underdog but shocked the crowd when he dominated the Mexican star from start to finish.
Bivol has yet to drop a single professional fight since entering the competitive scene and is currently holding a win-loss record of 22-0 including 11 knockouts.
On the other hand, Beterbiev is also earning his stride and just raised his record to 20 wins without a loss and 20 knockouts.
Beterbiev is coming off a technical knockout victory over Callum Smith and is aiming to protect his IBF, WBC, and WBO light heavyweight belts against Bivol this June.
Bivol held the WBA and IBO for seven years now and a win over Beterbiev will make him the sport’s undisputed light heavyweight king.
Fight fans, who’d you got? Bivol or Beterbiev?
