By Ian S Palmer
Unbeaten WBC Light Heavyweight Champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk of Ukraine will be unifying his belt with undefeated IBF Champion Artur Beterbiev of Russia this Friday, October 18th. The 12-round bout from Philadelphia can be seen live in America on ESPN and ESPN Deportes while fans in Canada can catch it on TSN 2. Gvozdyk defended his title the first time in March when he stopped Doudou Ngumbu in the fifth round after winning it with an 11th-roiund stoppage over Adonis Stevenson last December. Beterbiev last fought in May when he stopped Radivoje Kalajdzic in the fifth round. He’s attempting to defend his belt for the third time after win it with a 12th-round stoppage over Enrico Koelling in November, 2017.
The 31-year-old Gvozdyk enters the ring with a perfect mark of 17-0 along with 14 Kos. He stands 6-feet-2-inches tall and has a reach of 75.5 inches. He’s now fighting out of Oxnard, California and has just 88 rounds under his belt since turning pro in 2014. The Ukrainian isn’t really known as a power puncher or one-punch knockout artist, but you’d never know it since his knockout ratio currently stands at a very impressive 82.3 per cent. His biggest wins have been against Stevenson, Tommy Karpency, Otis Griffin, Yunieski Gonzalez, Nadjib Mohammedi and Isaac Chilemba.
Gvozdyk won the bronze medal at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, England, is a three-time Ukrainian amateur national champion and also fought in the World and European Championships as well as in the world series of boxing. He has a lot of potential and passed his last test with flying colours when he stepped up in class against Stevenson. Gvozdyk has also captured the NABF, and WBO NABO Light Heavyweight Titles since turning pro. His chin is relatively solid, but Karpency dropped him in the first round in 2016.
Beterbiev stopped Callum Johnson in the fourth round last October in his first title defence before beating Kalajdzic. The 34-year-old is a former world amateur champion and Olympian who turned pro in 2013 and has boxed just 52 rounds since. The reason for this is because he’s knocked out all of his opponents while compiling a perfect record of 14-0 with 14 Kos. This of course means his knockout ratio currently stands at 100 per cent, but he’s disappointed many fans and critics by shying away from the big guns of the light heavyweight division until agreeing to this fight.
His biggest wins so far have been knockouts over Johnson and former world champions Gabriel Campillo in 2015 and Tavoris Cloud a year earlier. Size-wise, Beterbiev isn’t the biggest light heavyweight around as he’s just under 6-feet tall with a reach of 73.5 inches, giving up 2.5 inches in both height and reach to Gvozdyk. He obviously has fine boxing skills that were utilized during his amateur career but since turning pro he hasn’t really had the chance to use them. He’s been on a seek and destroy mission over the past few years and has been very successful at it.
Beterbiev also has a pretty solid chin but he’s been on the canvas before as Jeff Page Jr. dropped him in the first round with a right hand back in December of 2014. However he got up from the canvas and stopped Page the next round after decking him twice. The knock against Beterbiev is that he doesn’t use his jab enough, lacks hand speed and doesn’t move his head much either, which makes him a bit of a sitting duck. But he hasn’t paid for it yet due to his tremendous power.
Prediction…
Beterbiev has somewhat limited skills for a former Olympian but makes up for it in power. He hasn’t been facing the cream of the crop in the 175 lb division and his lack of top opposition may hurt him. He enters the fight with a psychological edge though since he stopped Gvozdyk in the second round in the amateurs 10 years ago. This is a great matchup with any outcome being possible including a draw. I think Gvozdyk has the better boxing skills though and if he can use his size advantage I think he can take the fight. His chin needs to hold out of course but he’s arguably just as powerful as Beterbiev so I like his chances.
