(Photo credit: Lucas Noonan/Premier Boxing Champions) By Allan Fox: Light heavyweight Artur Beterbiev (8-0, 8 KOs) isn’t too worried about facing the southpaw Alexander Johnson (16-2, 7 KOs) this Friday in their fight on Spike TV on Premier Boxing champions from the UIC Pavilion, in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Beterbiev will have a huge advantage in punching power, boxing skills, and past amateur experience. Beterbiev doesn’t have much experience as a pro, but he’s a two-time Olympian from Russia and he’s beaten Sergey Kovalev in the past when the two fighters were fighting in the amateur ranks.
Beterbiev admits that he’s not spent much time studying video of Johnson’s past fights, but he feels good about his preparation for this fight. Beterbiev has a leg up on Johnson because his last fight was against the southpaw Gabriel Campillo last April, and Beterbiev put in a lot of work in getting ready for that fight.
Beterbiev stopped Campillo in the 4th round in routing a very good fighter. Johnson, 33, doesn’t have the same pedigree as Campillo, so this should be a pretty easy win for Beterbiev. It’s a case of him fighting a 2nd tier guy who isn’t in his class in terms of talent.
“If my opponent is going to call himself Alexander ‘The Great’ Johnson, then I’ll be ‘King Arthur’ and I’m here to win. Even though I make that joke I am here to win and that is the truth,” Beterbiev said.
Beterbiev will likely not waste much time in trying to get Johnson out of there as fast as possible. He’s not going to let Johnson hang around for long and hope to get lucky by landing a big shot. In Beterbiev’s recent fights, he’s taken out Campillo, Jeff Page Jr., Tavoris Cloud and Alvaro Enriquez early in his fights.
Those guys weren’t prepared for Beterbiev’s huge punching power and his smothering inside game. Beterbiev likes to immediately jump on his opponents at close range the same way that WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward does, and he gives them no room for them to get their shots off. Beterbiev is a devastating puncher at close range or on the outside. That’s what makes him so dangerous because he’s capable of coming up with huge power no matter what range he is at with his opponents.
“We couldn’t do too much research on the new opponent, but we’ve looked through a couple of videos so we know the opponent is a southpaw and we’re ready for that,” Beterbiev said.
The Johnson-Beterbiev fight should give boxing fans a look at how good Beterbiev is, and will prep them for seeing the Russian fighter against one of the 175 pound world champions in the near future. Beterbiev is ranked #2 IBF, #4 WBA, #4 WBC. It means he can pick and choose which of the light heavyweight world champions that he wants to face.
Kovalev and Adonis Stevenson are considered pretty even in terms of talent, so Beterbiev can’t go wrong with looking to face one of those two. WBA champ Juergen Braehmer is seen as one of the lesser champions at light heavyweight by a lot of fans. He’d be a good guy for Beterbiev to fight if he wants to win an easy title without having to deal with the negotiating nightmares of facing Kovalev or Stevenson.
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