By Allan Fox: Artur Beterbiev will do battle this Saturday night against Enrico Koelling for the vacant IBF World light heavyweight title at the Save Mart Arena in Fresno, California.
Koelling, 27, is going to need to out-box Beterbiev for him to have a chance of winning. The reason for that is simple. Koelling isn’t a puncher, and he’s not going to be able to trade power shots with the hard hitting Beterbiev for any length of time without putting himself at serious risk of being knocked out.
The last time Koelling knocked out one of his opponent was three years ago with a 6th round knockout of journeyman Daniel Regi (28-14, 15 KOs) on July 27, 2014. Koelling’s lack of power is the sole reason why the boxing odds-makers are giving him little chance of beating Beterbiev on Saturday night.
Koelling does have good boxing skills though. He’s definitely not a pushover by any means. Koelling competed in the 2012 Olympics for Germany, and he showed some good skills.
Koelling only has one loss on his record to Italian Mirco Ricci on February 21, 2015. Koelling has won his last 7 fights since then against weak opposition. Koelling did beat Ryno Liebenberg twice, but he’s not one of the major players in the 175 lb. division. Koelling also beat Oleksandr Cherviak last year by a 12 round decision, but he’s not one of the better fighters either.
Beterbiev-Koelling breaks down to these areas:
• Power – Beterbiev
• Speed – Koelling
• Boxing skills – Beterbiev
• Experience – Beterbiev
• Ring IQ – Beterbiev
With Andre Ward now gone into retirement, Beterbiev, 32, might be the best fighter in the 175 pound division. Heck, even if Ward had stayed around to continue his career, the 2-time Russian Olympian Beterbiev might still have been the best fighter in the division. That’s how good Beterbiev is. He’s one of those guys that can knockout an opponent with a single punch on the outside or the inside, which is why he would have been a real problem for Ward.
Some boxing fans believe Ward didn’t want to have to fight Beterbiev, so he retired rather than take that fight. It would have been a hard fight for Ward, because he wouldn’t have been able to count on getting the better of Beterbiev in close the way he did with Sergey Kovalev in his last 2 matches. Unlike Kovalev, Beterbiev is a superb inside fighter, with knockout power at close range. Ward would have been clocked by Beterbiev if he chose to wrestle him the way he did Kovalev on the inside.
The Beterbiev vs. Koelling match-up has gone largely unnoticed by the boxing world this week, as the attention has largely been on former middleweight champion Danny Jacobs’ match against Luis Arias on HBO Boxing. Even the undercard fight between Jarrell Miller and Mariusz Wach received more attention than the Beterbiev-Koelling fight.
The one thing that Beterbiev has going against him for Saturday is his inactivity. He’s been out of the ring since last December with promotional issues and fights falling through. It’s been 11 months since Beterbiev last fought. Beterbiev also missed a year of his career with a shoulder injury from June 2015 to June 2016. So, basically, Beterbiev has fought just 3 times in the last 2 ½ years. That’s not good for a fighter who got a late start on his pro career due to his lengthy amateur background in Russia.
Beterbiev turned pro in 2013 at the age of 2013, and he’s now missed roughly 2 years of activity since 2015. That’s definitely not good for Beterbiev when it comes to his legacy, as well as it taking a bite out of his ability to earn money inside the ring. Beterbiev needs to stay active after Saturday if he wants to get the most out of his boxing career. He can’t afford to be sitting out of the ring for 11 to 12 months at a time for him to maximize the amount of time he has left.
Koelling isn’t the main problem for Beterbiev. It’s what comes after him. If Beterbiev isn’t sidelined with additional injury or promotional problems after Saturday’s fight with Koelling, he’ll potentially have to deal with Oleksandr Gvozdyk, who is the next highest ranked contender in the International Boxing Federation’s top 15 rankings. It’s still unclear whether Gvozdyk will elect to go after Beterbiev for a title shot or wait on a fight against the winner of the November 25 fight between Sergey Kovalev and Vyacheslav Shabranskyy. Gvozdyk is ranked No.1 by the World Boxing Organization at this time, which suggests that he might opt to go after the Kovalev-Shabranskyy winner. The 34-year-old Kovalev is looking very vulnerable right now, and Gvozdyk would have the perfect opponent for him take advantage of for a better shot at winning a world title.
In Beterbiev’s last fight, he defeated Isidro Ranoni Prieto by a 1st round knockout on December 23, 2016. That was supposed to be a step up fight for Beterbiev, but it turned out to be an easy fight for him. In the fight before that, Beterbiev defeated Ezequiel Osvaldo Maderna by a 4th round knockout on June 4 last year. That was Beterbiev’s first fight after being out of the ring for an entire year with a shoulder problem. Maderna was no match for Beterbiev, getting knocked down twice in the 3rd and another 2 times in round 4.
For fans wanting to know, Beterbiev-Koelling will be televised on ESPN this Saturday on November 11 starting at 10:30 p.m. ET/PT.