Wrap-Up: Bivol gets even with Beterbiev, plus Shakur, Parker, Kabayel, more

Dmitry Bivol took the “0” from Artur Beterbiev, as Beterbiev did to him last year, plus more from Riyadh and elsewhere in boxing!

Dmitry Bivol gets revenge, goes undisputed at 175

The obvious biggest story of the week is that Dmitry Bivol rallied to cleanly beat Artur Beterbiev in Saturday’s huge rematch from Riyadh, taking the undisputed light heavyweight championship in another excellent fight between two of the best of an entire generation, and the obvious two best 175 lb fighters of said generation.

Bivol was down early this time around, sort of a flip from the first fight, and he weathered some impressive storms from Beterbiev, who faded in the middle but did work hard to take the fight back late, resulting in a tight but fairly scored majority decision win for Bivol.

A neat extra note: The scores of this fight (114-114, 115-113, 116-112) were exactly the same as the scores from the first fight, just in reverse. So after 24 rounds, these two are literally as even as they can possibly be by the official scores; if you add them up, you can say they are are even at 228-228 on three cards.

A third fight beckons and seems highly likely.

(Yes, he meant Bane. It was addressed.)

Parker destroys Bakole, Shakur makes Riyadh debut, Ortiz rallies, more

Even with two late adjustments — Joseph Parker fought Martin Bakole instead of Daniel Dubois and Shakur Stevenson faced Josh Padley instead of Floyd Schofield — the undercard from Riyadh was big and eventful, with plenty of notable happenings.

Parker smashed Bakole in the second round, landing a right hand to the top of the head that demolished Bakole’s equilibrium. The loss won’t ruin Bakole, though it will make his path to a world title fight tougher, but giving Turki Alalshikh one real bit of credit as something more than “guy who has loads of money,” the man who now rules boxing does not have the modern era promoter disease of caring terribly that someone lost a fight. Bakole took a risk, saved a fight date for Joe Parker, and lost, because when you match good fighters, one of them loses. He’ll get his chances at redemption.

Parker is right in position for either a rescheduled date with IBF titlist Dubois or a fight with WBC/WBA/WBO titleholder and obvious true king Oleksandr Usyk, which he pitched after the win, but not everyone sees him as a true threat to the top dogs.

Stevenson’s win over Padley, a ninth round TKO in a one-sided mismatch, drew mixed reviews, too.

Carlos Adames retained his WBC middleweight title in a draw with Hamzah Sheeraz, whose stock took a hit, as has happened to several other would-be saviors of the recently dreadful middleweight division. Several commenters felt Adames truly deserved the win in the fight:

Vergil Ortiz Jr put things together over the course of the fight and took a decision over Israil Madrimov:

Heavyweight Agit Kabayel continued his wild rise up the ranks by knocking out Zhilei Zhang, continuing to impress:

And Callum Smith gave his career a shot in the arm with a win over Joshua Buatsi, taking an interim light heavyweight title and keeping himself right in the mix at 175:

More from this week:

• Kind of a short week otherwise, because so much of everything was focused on the lead-in to this fight card, but there was a bit.
• There was another Redneck Brawl, and John watched all the Cooters, Pooters, and Dick Trickles hit each other.
• Josh Taylor’s return — and move up to welterweight — against Ekow Essuman is officially set for May 17 in Glasgow.
• Daud Yordan, who hasn’t won a meaningful fight in over a decade and is most-known for losses, says he’ll end George Kambosos Jr’s career when they fight next month. Kambosos seems unbothered by the threat.
• Christian Mbilli will not be facing Kevin Sadjo in a super middleweight eliminator, with Mbilli’s team citing the failure of the French promoter who won the purse bid to put Mbilli’s purse in escrow. Their new target is a WBC interim fight, which should work out, because the sport is handing out interim titles like Halloween candy these days. The Riyadh card on Saturday had a hilarious four interim title fights, two from the WBC and two from the WBO.