For Artur Beterbiev, the fight with Adam Dines can be called special for a number of reasons.
The Russian fighter will not only make a return to the ring after a 17-month break and will hold the first defense of the World Boxing Council's light heavyweight title, but will also perform for the first time in front of his native fans.
The 36-year-old boxer spent most of his career in Montreal, and in recent years began to actively fight in the United States.
In the Russian capital, he has not fought since 2010, when he won the European Amateur Championship.
On paper, Beterbiev's return to his homeland had every chance of becoming one of the biggest events of the year in Russian sports.
Arthur not only has a perfect record of 15 fights, but is also one of only two boxers from Russia to hold world titles.
In addition, his presence in the ring is almost a guarantee that the audience will witness a striking knockout.
So, all the fights with his participation ended ahead of schedule, while in 14 cases the opponent ended up on the floor.
Only Reiko Saunders managed to avoid this, who refused to go to the fourth round.
However, so far there is a feeling that the excitement around the battle between Beterbiev and Dines will not correspond to the status of one of its participants.
Moreover, this became noticeable after the official announcement of the battle, and finally found confirmation during the official press conference.
The German was mainly asked about the status of the underdog, and the Russian was only once asked to share his opinion on his attitude towards the opponent.
But mostly Arthur had to answer questions about major fights that could await him in the future.
In particular, he was asked about the desire to measure strength with Saul Alvarez and Sergey Kovalev, as well as a possible transition to mixed martial arts.
At the same time, Beterbiev himself also made it clear that until now he did not know much about his future opponent.
As the Russian admitted, he had not heard of Dines until the moment he replaced Meng Fanlong as a contender for the IBF title.
And this is not surprising, given the fact that until now the German fought mainly at home and with not the most stellar counterparts.
Ironically, the most famous of them is the Chinese, instead of whom he received the right to fight with the Russian.
In addition, it was Meng Fanlong who inflicted his only career defeat by unanimous decision.
The rest of Dines' opponents are not elite.
So, in the last two fights, he took over the Czech boxers Yevgeny Makhtienko and Josef Ler.
At the time of the meeting, the first had a negative balance of victories and defeats (10-12), and the second had only one duel at all in the professional ring.
And this is far from the only case when Adam fought with opponents of this level.
In the past five years, he was opposed by Philip Kolodzhey (9-5), Zura Mekereshvili (8-7), Karel Khoreishek (5-6), whose records speak volumes.
Dines was hardly the most obvious candidate for a meeting with Beterbiev.
Even in the IBF rankings, he occupies only fifth place, and ahead of him are not only the aforementioned Fanlong, but also undefeated Britons Joshua Buatsi and Lyndon Arthur, a fight with each of whom would surely become more expected and attractive for the audience.
However, Beterbieva is a champion and is obliged to regularly defend titles if she does not want to lose them.
Thus, if a boxing organization assigns him a battle with one or another challenger, then he has no choice but to agree.
The problem is that in boxing, battles between unequal athletes take place all the time, which has already significantly affected its popularity.
This is evidenced by the sales of paid broadcasts of martial arts tournaments in recent years.
According to the bookmaker bwin, an equal number of boxing and MMA events are in the top 20 leaders for this indicator.
Yes, the record still belongs to the oldest martial arts, but now its dominance is not so obvious.
Among the boxing shows included in the rating, only three have taken place since 2017, and only in one of them two professional representatives of this sport competed with each other.
We are talking about the duel between Saul Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., which was watched by 1.2 million people.
A fight between bloggers Logan Paul and KSI, as well as a crossover fight between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor (4.3 million), gathered 100 thousand more.
Over the past decade, boxing was primarily remembered not for bright fights, but for difficult negotiations that preceded almost each of them.
Only in 2021 was it possible to organize a duel between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, although both were in the heavyweight elite for a long time.
Over the past two and a half years, Gennady Golovkin only once fought with an opponent comparable to him in class, while his third meeting with Canelo has been postponed indefinitely.
You can also remember how many years it took to bring Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao together in the ring, although it seemed obvious.
All this suggests how imperfect the system of organizing fights in boxing is at the moment.
Large promotion companies and streaming services divided the brightest athletes among themselves, as a result of which it became almost impossible to bring them together in the ring.
Against this background, mixed martial arts look much more preferable.
Yes, most of the stars are gathered under the auspices of one organization, but the fans have the opportunity to regularly watch the opposition of the strongest.
At the moment, the influence of this system on himself is felt by Beterbiev himself.
For several years now, one of the most discussed topics has been his possible meeting with Dmitry Bivol, but the matter has not gotten off the ground.
And this despite the fact that both the former head of the Russian Boxing Federation Umar Kremlev and the head of the promotion company "Boxing World" Andrei Ryabinsky have repeatedly stated their readiness to arrange this fight.
However, instead of this, Arthur fights with a little-known German, and Dmitry is in search of a counterpart at all.
If you look at things objectively, then by the age of 36, Beterbiev has only one victory over an extra-class boxer who enjoyed decent popularity.
We are talking about Alexander Gvozdik - the former holder of the WBC title.
But even the fight with him did not cause a stir among the fans.
According to Nielsen Media Research, 635,000 viewers watched the unified light heavyweight fight on ESPN.
Yes, the numbers could have been higher if the fifth match of the American League Final in the Major League Baseball (Major League Baseball) between the New York Yankees and the Houston Astros was not broadcast at the same time.
But you shouldn't blame everything on this.
Thus, Beterbiev comes close to the moment when he should think about organizing a loud and box-office duel.
The one that will allow him not only to strengthen his status as one of the main stars of boxing in the world, but also to earn extra money.
Of course, while Arthur is in excellent shape, but after three or four years he may well think about retirement.
Not everyone is able to repeat the success of Bernard Hopkins and perform successfully until the age of 50, and it is still difficult to say whether a Russian is capable of such a thing.
If the organization of the battle with Bivol proceeds in an equally tense manner, then Beterbiev should consider options for battles with other serious opponents.
The battle with Jean Pascal may be interesting for the Canadian public, and the battle with Sergei Kovalev - for the Russian.
At the same time, you should not discount the transition to the first heavy weight.
In amateurs, Arthur successfully performed in this category, and at major competitions he lost only to Alexander Usik.
At the same time, champions in two weight categories obviously have a high status and can count on more substantial fees.