Timely Awakening: Beterbiev KOs Dines and Defends WBC & IBF Light Heavyweight Titles

First of all, the fight with Adam Dines was viewed through the prism of Arthur Beterbiev's return to his homeland.

After becoming a professional, the native of Khasavyurt won 15 fights, won the WBC and IBF world light heavyweight titles, but never fought in Russia.

Therefore, the fight is guaranteed to attract the attention of boxing fans, even despite not the most stellar opponent.

Initially, Beterbiev was supposed to defend the world titles in the battle with the Chinese Meng Fanlong, who ranks first in the ranking of the International Boxing Federation, but this battle did not take place.

The fight was scheduled for the end of March 2020, but the coronavirus intervened.

Subsequently, the battle was postponed twice, but in the end it was canceled.

For a number of reasons, the Chinese boxer was unable to come to Russia and gave way to Daines.

This candidacy from the very beginning caused skepticism from the sports community.

Dines could not boast of either a perfect record or victories over strong opponents, and therefore his choice as a challenger did not seem reasonable.

Neither the journalists, who gave him a rather cold reception during the press conference, nor the bookmakers believed in the German's success.

Adam was considered a clear underdog, and the odds on his success ranged from 11.00 to 15.00.

In this regard, one of the main intrigues was how long Beterbiev would delight domestic fans with a performance in the ring.

Until now, none of the fights with his participation lasted the entire distance, while only twice he was forced to spend more than seven rounds in the ring.

In 2017, he knocked out German Enrico Kölling only 27 seconds before the end of the 12th three-minute period, and two years later, almost half an hour later, he fought with Alexander Gvozdik.

Despite the level of the opponent, Beterbiev decided not to change his style and spent the first three minutes in reconnaissance: he attacked mainly with single strikes and watched Daines's reaction.

He tried to sharply respond to every attack of the champion and at times surprised him with speed, but in fact, almost all of his attacks went wide of the mark.

With the exception of a small failure in the first seconds, Arthur controlled the course of the battle, and in the last seconds he sent his counterpart to the floor with his right side.

The judge counted to eight, but the German got up.

The next rounds showed that the knockdown did not affect the state of Dines.

The challenger continued to snarl and respond to every blow of the champion with his own, gradually shifting the direction of attacks towards the body.

Beterbiev continued to press and a little more often began to drive the enemy into a corner, but could not take him by surprise.

At the same time, Adam forced Arthur to fail several times, which was alarming.

In addition, a dissection opened on the Russian's forehead, while the German looked rather fresh.

On the eve of the battle, many were seriously worried about how a prolonged downtime would affect Beterbiev's performance.

The 17-month pause was rarely beneficial to professional athletes - the Russian was no exception.

In the fourth-sixth rounds, he tried to pick up the pace and start working with combinations, but could not reach his usual powers.

Arthur barely broke through the massive defense of Adam, while he himself allowed him to respond dangerously.

Often he just froze on his feet and missed unpleasant jabs and hooks, which indicated imperfect readiness.

The challenger did not offer the champion anything extraordinary, but tried to punish any mistake and not slow down.

As the boxers spent nine rounds in the ring, Beterbiev's condition began to cause more and more questions.

Yes, the superiority of the Russian in the ring was not in doubt: he put pressure on the opponent, beat more and most likely led confidently on the referee's cards, but could not bring the matter to a knockout.

At the same time, over time, the Russian began to miss a little more.

An unpleasant call was also the way Arthur began to distribute forces in the course of three minutes.

And if in the first half of the duel he preferred to calmly spend the first half of the segment, and “explode” in the second, then as the battle progressed, Dines looked more and more confident in the endings.

In addition, a small hematoma under the right eye was added to the incision on the champion's forehead.

Unexpectedly, it was after this that Beterbiev finally turned on the close to maximum speed and finished the fight ahead of schedule.

The Russian began to move forward even more actively and work mainly with combinations of "floors", and during one of the exchanges he hit with a counter blow.

This time Dines with great difficulty got to his feet, but the seconds did not allow him to continue to fight.

Corner Germans threw away the towel, thus summing up the duel.

Arthur won his 16th straight win in a row and defended his WBC and IBF light heavyweight titles.

“Greetings to everyone who came.

Those who did not come - too.

It was a little exciting for me: the first battle in Russia and immediately in the capital.

But I was very pleased.

The fight dragged on a bit, of course.

I'll tell you the reason right away: my coach in the ninth or eighth round tells me: "Wake up."

So I slept today.

Of course, this does not detract from the work of my opponent.

He is a fine fellow, he worked well, he held himself with dignity.

Thanks to him too, ”Beterbiev admitted.

Also, the evening of boxing in Moscow was remembered for the return to the ring of Alexander Besputin.

In December 2019, the Russian defeated compatriot Rajab Butaev and won the WBA world welterweight title.

True, a month later he passed a positive doping test, as a result of which he was stripped of his belt and disqualified for six months.

Thus, the boxer could already fight in the summer of 2020, but the situation with the pandemic postponed his next fight.

In January, Besputin's 15th career fight was announced.

According to the original plan, the Argentinean Maximiliano Veron was to become his rival, however, three days before the show, he passed a positive test for coronavirus.

He was replaced by 43-year-old Ukrainian Viktor Plotnikov, but expectedly failed to compete.

The boxer lasted only six minutes in the ring, and in the interval between the rounds he refused to continue the fight.

In the second most important fight of the evening, Pavel Silyagin defeated Azizbek Abdugofurov by unanimous decision and won the WBC Super Silver middleweight title.

The 27-year-old Russian did not leave any chances to his opponent and coped with the fourth number of the World Boxing Council rating without any problems.

He perfectly controlled the distance and over and over again ahead of Abdugofurov, who made a bet on his knockout blow.

As a result, two judges gave Silyagin 11 rounds, and the third even noted his superiority in each of the segments.