By Allan Fox: Artur Beterbiev and Enrico Koelling will fight it out this Saturday night for the vacant IBF light heavyweight title on November 11th at the Save Mart Arena in Fresno, California. The fight will be televised on ESPN at 10:30 p.m. ET/7:30 p.m. PT.
Beterbiev is the favorite to win this fight. He’s got the power advantage, and he’s looking really good right now.
The location of the Beterbiev-Koelling fight is an odd one, as neither fighter lives anywhere close to Fresno. Beterbiev (11-0, 11 KOs) is from Russia, and he currently lives in Montreal, Canada. For his part, Koelling (23-1, 6 KOs) lives in Germany. So, neither guy will likely have a lot of boxing fans turning out to see them on Saturday. About the best thing you can say about the Beterbiev vs. Koelling fight is it’s fair that the fight will be staged in a neutral venue.
The Beterbiev vs. Koelling fight will be running up against the Daniel Jacobs vs. Luis Arias fight card, which starts a little earlier at 10:00 p.m. ET on HBO Boxing. The fans will have to decide which of the two fights to watch. The decision could be easy one for fans that don’t subscribe to HBO.
Beterbiev was looking forward to fighting Andre “SOG” Ward for the IBF 175 lb. title, but he vacated the belt and retired recently. Beterbiev doesn’t fault Ward for retiring when he did. He thinks Ward was smart to retire.
”The training camp has gone very well. [Koelling] is a strong, experienced fighter, I respect that. I’m ready for this fight. I have a couple of strategies that I’ll show you on November 11th!” said Beterbiev to boxnation.com. “There’s no disappointment in [missing an Andre Ward bout]. Ward’s a very smart fighter. He’s took a decision to retire and I don’t think it surprised many fans. I respect his decision and I wish him good luck,” said Beterbiev.
Ward would have had a tough fight on his hands against Beterbiev. With Beterbiev’s inside’s game, he would have been a real problem for Ward. As it is, Ward struggled in his last 2 fights against Sergey Kovalev. The first fight was a controversial 12 round decision win for Ward last November. In the second fight, it was competitive until Ward took Kovalev out with what appeared to be 3 hard low blows in the 8th round. The referee stopped the fight with Kovalev bent over and seemingly feeling the negative effects of the low blows.
A win for Beterbiev will give him the IBF title, and open up a lot of potential big fights against the other champions at 175 like Adonis Stevenson and Dmitry Bivol. Stevenson would be a good fight, as he’s viewed by some in the boxing world to be to the best fighter in the division.
“This is the most important fight of my career, I’m ready for the World Title, I’m ready for this fight. This is my dream, it’s one step closer to me. I’m ready,” said Beterbiev. “I want to win at least one belt. After that I want to fight the best boxer in my division!”