Top rated Russian prospect and contender Artur Beterbiev will get his first world title crack on the undercard of Jessie Magdaleno’s title defense on November 11th. His fight with Enrico Koelling has now been officially upgraded to a vacant IBF light heavyweight title bout in the wake of Andre Ward’s retirement.
As a world title fight, this is a pretty poor one. 32 year old two time Russian Olympian Artur Beterbiev (11-0, 11 KOs) has been considered one of the best talents in the world for a few years now. Although a promotional dispute with Montreal based Yvon Mitchell has all but killed his career momentum, 27 year old German non-contender Enrico Koelling (23-1, 6 KOs) cannot possibly be considered any sort of threat whatsoever. He has already lost well below this level and has no notable wins.
Still, at least Beterbiev is potentially going to be active again going forward. Given that Top Rank won this purse bid without a promotional interest in either fighter, the obvious speculation here is that the Russian destroyer is about to settle his dispute with Mitchell and join the American promotional giant. This should give Top Rank another talented titleholder to air consistently on ESPN given their current contract. As much as this fight is a farce competitively, there is that good to come of it.
