By Kenneth Friedman: Artur Beterbiev and Meng Fanlong have both signed their contract and the fight is now official for March 28 on ESPN at the Videotron Center in Quebec City, according to Dan Rafael. The two-time Russian Olympian Beterbiev (15-0, 15 KOs) will be defending his IBF light heavyweight title against his IBF mandatory Fanlong (16-0, 10 KOs).
Beterbiev’s promoters at Top Rank Boxing lost the purse bid to Chinese company Longjoy Sports. However, they defaulted, which swung it back to Top Rank, who decided to stage the fight in Quebec. Beterbiev now lives in Montreal, Canada, and has fought the majority of his fights as a professional in that country. But with Beterbiev’s punching power, he’s capable of winning anywhere in the world.
Meng Fanlong will have it tough against Beterbiev
Fanlong is a 2012 Olympian from China with wins over Daniel Judah and Frank Buglioni as a pro. In the Olympics Fanlong was edged out by Yamaguchi Falcao in a close fight. He’s a good fighter, but he hasn’t had the chance to prove just how good he is in the professional ranks.
On March 28th, we’ll see if Fanlong has the talent to upset the unbeaten Beterbiev, and end his 15-fight knockout streak. Going into the match, Fanlong will be viewed as having next to no chance of winning.
The IBF obviously sees something in Fanlong for them rank him at #1 above these talented contenders:
- Joshua Buatsi
- Oleksandr Gvozdyk
- Callum Johnson
- Maksim Vlasov
There’s a good chance that Fanlong would lose to all 4 of those contenders, including a half a dozen other contenders in the IBF’s top 15 rankings. That’s why it’s important for the sanctioning bodies to ensure that their rankings make sense, because it helps avoid mismatches that disappoint boxing fans.
Beterbiev coming of grueling fight against Gvozdyk
As Beterbiev recently said after his 10th round stoppage win over WBC light heavyweight champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk last October, “I don’t need judges.” Despite stopping Gvozdyk, it was a hard fight for Beterbiev with him taking a lot of punishing shots from the highly skilled and powerful Gvozdyk. The Ukrainian fighter Gvozdyk had recently scored two big knockout victories over Doudou Ngumbu and Adonis Stevenson, and the boxing experts had him as the favorite against Beterbiev.
This will be the fourth defense for Beterbiev of his IBF 175-lb title that he won in 2017 in stopping Enrico Koelling in the 12th round. It’s arguably a big step down though for Beterbiev in facing the 31-year-old Fanlong from his last fight against former WBC 175-lb champion Gvozdyk, who gave him a lot of problems. Beterbiev was trailing on two of the judges’ scorecards going into the 10th round. They had Gvozdyk up 87-84, 86-85.
The third judge surprisingly had Beterbiev up 87-83. For most boxing fans, they felt that Gvozdyk looked to be in control of the fight before the start of the 10th. Unfortunately for Gvozdyk, everything fell apart for him in the 10th, as Beterbiev knocked him down three times before the fight was halted by referee Gary Rosato.