By Barry Holbrook: The International Boxing Federation has scheduled a purse this month on December 30th for IBF light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev’s ordered title defense against mandatory challenger Fanlong Meng (16-0, 10 KOs). If the management for the unbeaten Beterbiev (15-0, 15 KOs) can’t workout a deal before that date, then a purse bid will take place.
Arum wants Beterbiev vs. Meng outside of China
Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says he wants to stage the Beterbiev vs. Meng fight in an Island near China. The fight could take place in March. If Beterbiev wins, then Arum wants to match him against WBA 175-lb champion Dmitry Bivol in a unification fight.
Arum had been hoping that he could match Beterbiev against the winner of the Canelo Alvarez vs. Sergey Kovalev’s fight, but that’s not going to happen. Canelo vacated his WBO title this week, and will likely move back down to 168 for his next fight.
This is a fight that the two-time Russian Olympian Beterbiev has to get out of the way before he can move on to bigger, and hopefully better matches in the future. Beterbiev, 34, is coming off of his best career victory in stopping WBC light heavyweight champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk in the 10th round on October 18 in Philadelphia.
The performance may have scared off the likes of Canelo Alvarez, as he chose the arguably easier fight against Kovalev when he went after his 4th division world title on November 2.
Bivol on the target list for Beterbiev after Meng fight
“We’re hoping to do that fight in China. We have a big offer to go to an Island off China, which they call the Chinese Hawaii,” said Arum to Fighthype. “After that, Eddie Hearn said he would make [WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry] Bivol available to fight the winner of this fight [Beterbiev vs. Fanlong] on ESPN. So we’ll take him up on that,” said Arum.
Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol would be an excellent fight if Arum can negotiate it with Dmitry’s promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing. Hearn like the idea of putting Bivol in unification fights, but we’ll have to see if he feels confident enough to let him fight Beterbiev. Bivol isn’t a big puncher, and he’s on the small side for the 175-lb division. He would be better off fighting at 168. He would be in a position to get winnable fights against Canelo Alvarez, Billy Joe Saunders and Callum Smith.
Beterbiev looks almost unstoppable right now off his win over Gvozdyk. The only one that could give Beterbiev problems right now is Bivol (17-0, 11 KOs), but he might be too powerful for him.
Bivol’s last 3 fights against Jean Pascal, Joe Smith Jr. and Lenis Castillo have left a lot to be desired. While Bivol won all three fights, he looked vulnerable, and not the guy that many boxing fans thought he was.