Two 175 lb world title fights have been booked for the end of the year.
It has been rumored for the last week or so that HBO was looking for a November card headlined by young WBA light heavyweight titleholder Dmitry Bivol (14-0, 11 KOs). Why, exactly, I’m not entirely sure. The prestige premium network has announced it is getting out of the boxing business at the end of the year. They owe Jaime Munguia a fight so booking that card makes sense, but no one is saying the same about Bivol. This isn’t going to draw big numbers, new subscribers, nor is there any reason for the network to build him up for the future. Maybe they do owe him a fight. I can’t figure another reason for putting this card together.
Anyway, I digress. The original rumored opponent was Joe Smith Jr (24-2, 20 KOs), but the Long Island native elected to go in another direction. Instead Bivol will be defending against Jean Pascal (33-5-1, 20 KOs) on November 24th. I have a new theory, actually. It is now my belief that someone high up at HBO has such a burning hatred for the French Canadian that they decided to pay for this show just to watch him get badly beat up one more time. The last two times Pascal was on the network he received career altering drubbings from Sergey Kovalev and he’s never been the same since. He’s not going to threaten Dmitry Bivol in any way. If this is what HBO had left for us, good riddance.
As for what Joe Smith Jr and his limited skillset but heavy hands decided to do, he’ll be instead vying for the IBF belt held by Artur Beterbiev (13-0, 13 KOs) on DAZN at a to be determined date in December. I’d take this fight over the Bivol fight if I was Smith too. Joe is a solid technical fighter, but he is far from a wizard in there and his athleticism is limited. An elite, athletic technician like Dmitry is a bad matchup. Artur Beterbiev will still be a tall mountain to climb, but Callum Johnson very recently gave us evidence of his vulnerability by hurting and dropping the Russian just a couple weeks ago. Joe Smith Jr hits harder than Johnson and might be just as good of a fighter overall, so there will be some intrigue here.
Beterbiev will still be favored heavily though. It’ll take the perfect shot from Smith to get rid of him. It can’t be ruled out, but it isn’t likely. More important almost than this fight itself is what it signals for the frustratingly inactive career of the Russian titleholder. Artur had spent the last few years in a dispute with Montreal promoter Yvon Michel and he hadn’t been fighting with any consistency. To fight again in December would mean the exciting titleholder would be fighting twice in two months under his deal with Matchroom Boxing. He hasn’t even consistently fought twice a year over the last three. That’s the best news of all of this.
