Billy's Boxing Blog

By William Trillo

Once again we have received an email from David McGarry. This time in the form of a question. Knowing that I had just visited Montreal McGarry inquires about a fighter who has suddenly fell off the radar. I will do my best to answer his following question:

Dear Mr. Trillo,

It’s a fairly quiet weekend for boxing and you’re just back from a trip to Montreal, so I thought this would be a good time to ask you: what is going on with Artur Beterbiev? The guy is already 31 years old and has had only ten fights since turning pro over three years ago. At times, he’s looked great and ready for the big time, but he hasn’t progressed. He could have been the next pound-for-pound star in boxing, instead his last two opponents were Ezequiel Osvaldo Maderna and Alexander Johnson. Considering the three opponents before that were Tavoris Cloud, Jeff Page and Gabriel Campillo, he has not lived up to earlier promise. I can understand a hard hitter like Beterbiev will be avoided by some rivals, but being a destructive puncher hasn’t stopped Kovalev and Golovkin from fighting regularly. So, is this the calm before the storm or has Beterbiev’s career fizzled out after a very promising start?

Thanks for the question. As I told you in my previous blog Beterbiev looked to be reappearing on the scene sometime around Christmas. As it turns out, he is in fact fighting in December. You can read all about the fight in today’s Cloutier’s Canada Corner.

I did some poking around in Montreal and was told by people close to Artur that he will return on the scene after healing from an injury. I was also told that fighters are reluctant to fight him, including one Sergey Kovalev whom he beat in the amateurs. I can neither confirm or deny Kovalev was approached.

I can tell you that I was more than worried about his career once he signed with Al Haymon and The PBC. He is not the first fighter to sign with them who suddenly becomes less and less active. Whether or not the injury comes into play is up to speculation but it is good to see he is scheduled to fight again soon.

Like you, I believe Beterbiev can be a force in the Light Heavy division. I hope to see more of him in 2017 and if I am lucky I will get to see him live and in person once again.

Thanks for your continued support of our site.

Check out www.Pound4Pound.com for all the latest boxing news.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 29th, 2016 at 2:21 am and is filed under Boxing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.