By William Trillo
Photo: “Sugar” Ray Bailey
Last weekend in Philadelphia IBF Light Heavyweight Champion Artur Beterbiev (15-0, 15 KO’s) solidified his dominance in the 175 pound division with an impressive overpowering victory over WBC Champ Oleksandr Gvozdyk (17-1, 14 KO’s). Once again the man directing Beterbiev to victory was Montreal trainer Marc Ramsay. In a battle of undefeated champions having a trainer with Ramsay’s experience can be the X-Factor, and on this night it was.
Almost immediately Ramsay saw that Gvozdyk’s early plan was to circle to his right trying to avoid Beterbiev’s vaunted power. After the first round Ramsay instructed Artur to cut off the ring to keep Gvozdyk from moving to his right. I asked Ramsay if that early tweak led to Beterbiev’s dominance. “A little bit,” stated Ramsay, “We had to adjust very fast on that one but it still took a couple of rounds for Artur to be able to start hurting him as he got closer.”
Once Beterbiev got closer he began to throw some wicked body shots that made a quick impact on Gvozdyk. He was visibly shaken, Arturs body work was fantastic. Although Beterbiev is a huge puncher and everything that lands is dangerous, I mentioned to Ramsay that I didn’t recall a night that he focused so clearly on the body. Ramsay revealed, “Actually we worked on this (the body attack) to make sure we had more than one option to put in play against them. And yes, that was one aspect we wanted to apply.”
As anyone who watched the fight saw, that body attack was the beginning of the end for Gvozdyk as he absorbed an inordinate amount of accurate body blows that were key in Beterbiev’s KO victory.
Looking at the judges’ scorecards after the fight many were more than surprised to find that Gvozdyk was actually ahead on two of the judges’ scorecards. I had to ask Ramsay if he was as surprised as I was when he saw those scores after the fight was stopped. “Yes and No”, Ramsay said, “The fight was close and as a trainer you have to manage those kinds of situations like your little bit behind. But when I watched the replay I saw Artur winning the majority of rounds.”
Last but certainly not least I had to ask Ramsay if he believes Artur can capture all the belts and are they looking to become the undisputed light heavyweight champion? Without hesitation Ramsay answered, “Yes I do…this is our target!”
With names like Champions Dmitry Bivol, Sergey Kovalev not to mention the recently retired Andre Ward who was sitting ringside for the fight the 175 pound ranks has the potential to be of boxings most exciting divisions. Whether or not anyone will want to face that human wrecking ball we saw unify the titles you can rest assured that Marc Ramsay will be there to draw up a game plan and direct his charge when the bell rings.
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