“Bivol is ready to fight for undisputed [against Beterbiev]” says Eddie Hearn

By Dan Ambrose:  WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol is ready to fight the undisputed championship IBF/WBC/WBO champ Artur Beterbiev next, according to Eddie Hearn.

Beterbiev’s promoter Bob Arum isn’t interested in making the undisputed fight against Bivol this year, preferring instead to try and make it early next year with whoever holds the WBA title by that point.

Arum is matching Beterbiev against Anthony Yarde in a voluntary defense of his newly won WBO belt that he picked up from Joe Smith Jr last Saturday. Given that this is a voluntary defense for Beterbiev, he’s not being forced to fight Yarde to prevent him from losing his WBO title.

This is merely a fight that Arum is choosing to make rather than letting Beterbiev take the riskier match against Bivol, which is one he could lose.

Initially, we’d heard that the reason for the Beterbiev-Yarde fight is that Yarde was supposedly the WBO mandatory, but Hearn says that’s not the case. This is a voluntary defense for Beterbiev.

“Bivol is ready to fight for the undisputed,” said Hearn told Fight Hub TV. “If we wait, Bivol’s going to make a defense and then do the Canelo rematch.

“What are you waiting for? We’ve got no fight scheduled for Bivol.

“So, yeah, they’ve got a mandatory that’s not really a mandatory, but they’re choosing to take it in [Anthony] Yarde],” said Hearn.

Arum is choosing to have Beterbiev take a voluntary defense against the twice-beaten Yarde (22-2, 21 KOs) in a fight that is expected to be a slam dunk win for the unified champion.

Yarde hasn’t beaten anyone near the level of Beterbiev, and he’s likely to be totally out of his element in a fight that will resemble a slaughter than an athletic contest.

“Let’s do the undisputed next. Why do we have to wait? The fact is, people, know now how good Dmitry Bivol is. Dmitry Bivol is the best 175-pounder in the world,” said Hearn.

It would be a good idea for Hearn and Bivol to move on and forget about wasting their time trying to put a fight together with Beterbiev because Arum isn’t not going to make that match-up.

Next year will come and go, and Arum will choose to steer Beterbiev towards safer waters against opposition that are less threatening to him.

If Arum is lucky, Canelo will move back up to 175 to try and win the three belts off Beterbiev (18-0, 18 KOs). Realistically, that’s not going to happen, especially if Canelo loses the rematch with Bivol next May.

Now that Arum has decided to match Beterbiev against Yarde next in October, Bivol will likely defend against Joshua Buatsi in September or October in the UK.

Bivol vs. Buatsi won’t do much in terms of bringing in a lot of new subscribers to U.S boxing fans because they’re not familiar with the British fighter, but it’ll attract interest from UK fans.