Dmitry Bivol is a boxer from another time and place

If you look at its history, boxing has always been a fluid, ever-changing beast. Over time its rings have changed, its gloves have changed, its rules have changed, its weight classes have changed, and its rewards have changed. Always, in fact, it has been in a process of change; trying to improve, or simply survive.

Some will say change is for the better, and that this evolution was both inevitable and necessary for the sport to continue defying those who have for years predicted its death. Others will highlight how boxing has only ever mirrored society and that the degradation of society continues to be reflected in the way in which the spectacle of two human beings hitting each other is presented to us.

Whichever view is true, there is comfort to be found in one thing at least: The boxers. These men and women, no matter what alters around them, forever remain the same. They will, without exception, throw the same punches, make the same moves, feel the same pain, and have, for the most part, the same goals and ambitions as all those who came before them. The only difference, really, is the way they are sold these days and the audience to whom the selling is done. For some, this shift is no big deal. They seem almost made for it. Yet for others, those not as vocal or with a less accessible fighting style, it can be tougher to have their language understood by a world wanting everything in plain and simple terms.

A man like Dmitry Bivol, for example, is a technician of the highest grade, but is also a man out of place at this time in boxing history. As the sport awaits his headlining rematch against Artur Beterbiev for the undisputed light heavyweight championship on Saturday at an event stitched together with gold, the Russian’s style remains all about patience and understanding — two atrophied muscles of everyday life. He wins in his own way, at his own pace, and in his own time, with judges often needed, and he is not a man one associates with drama, knockouts, or moments clipped for social media to generate interest and attract others. Rather, he is a boxer who rewards diligence and knowledge; a boxer who tests the attention span of fans conditioned to believe all fights take place over eight two-minute rounds on Netflix.

In 24 professional fights, only 12 of Bivol’s have ended before the final bell, and only one of the last 12 has not gone the full 12 rounds. These numbers, for purists, mean there is more of Bivol to see, yet to anyone either new to the sport or short on patience, they represent an endurance test. It is a fast-moving world, after all, and today’s fans have other things to both see and do. They have a multitude of tabs open at any one time and they have other boxers at their disposal who converse in uppercase rather than lowercase, and don’t require nearly an hour of their attention to understand what it is they are doing in the ring.

Bivol, you see, remains a challenge, unapologetically. Like the best art, or indeed any great artist, the size of his appeal and audience is not a reflection on his brilliance but merely a reminder that things difficult to do are things difficult to understand for those not equipped to do them. Rather than try, many in that scenario tend to just look away, or find something easier to digest and comprehend.

To truly appreciate the extent of Dmitry Bivol’s artistry, you are better off consulting his collaborators or rivals than his audience. Lyndon Arthur, for instance, is not only a former opponent of Bivol’s but is also a fan. He was a fan before fighting him and he became an even bigger fan after fighting him.

“Bivol’s one of my favorite fighters, so he didn’t surprise me in there,” says Arthur, who handily lost a 12-round decision to Bivol in 2023. “I know how good he is. I expected him to do what he did and he didn’t do anything more than what I expected.

“I love the way he flows — he flows so naturally and effortlessly. I also like the way he puts his combinations together. It doesn’t seem like he’s doing much but he’s always doing something. He’s a bit like [Oleksandr] Usyk in that sense.

“He’s not got that much power; he’s more of an out-and-out boxer. But he’s definitely the best boxer I have faced, one million percent.”

It is a sentiment shared by most light heavyweights who have found themselves on the end of Bivol’s jab in a boxing ring.

“It was like playing chess,” says Craig Richards, who, in 2021, gave Bivol one of his tougher fights, losing a close decision after 12 rounds. “We were both setting traps for each other the whole time. Sometimes you watch a fight and it looks like not a lot is going on, but a lot was going on between us mentally. We were both trying to put each other into certain positions. Although we weren’t always throwing hands, there were a lot of mental games going on.

“He’s got very good reaction times. His hand speed is tremendous. He can throw loads of punches in bunches at very high speeds. He can also react to anything you do. He’s like a cat. If you try to throw a shot, and it’s not textbook or perfect, he will react and punish you. There’s no playing around with him. You’ve got to make sure everything is correct and exactly right.”

It’s all well and good winning the respect of one’s peers, but for a boxer to truly flourish — both commercially and financially — they must also appeal to the sport’s promoters. These are the men and women responsible for telling the world what a boxer cannot find the words to say himself. They are also the ones responsible for highlighting to the world the genius of what a boxer does in the ring, particularly when that genius requires translation.

In the case of Bivol, 34, he has worked with Matchroom Boxing since appearing on one of their Monte Carlo shows in 2017. He is promoted officially by Eddie Hearn, the chairman of Matchroom, but has worked closely with Frank Smith, Matchroom’s chief executive officer. Indeed it was Smith who was in Bivol’s proverbial corner the night in 2022 when Bivol shocked both Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Hearn, Alvarez’s promoter at the time.

“I think it was tough [promoting Bivol] until he beat ‘Canelo,’” says Smith. “Once you go in there and do something like that against someone like ‘Canelo,’ though, it all changes. To win like that in front of the audience ‘Canelo’ brings changed everything. You sort of take a bit of that stardom.

“He’s not an outspoken character, he’s very respectful. But I think people buy into the way he fights. When you take real fights, you are going to win the respect of people. He has done that. He has shown he is willing to take on hard tests, and I think that replaces the need to do the s*** talk other people need to do to build themselves because they haven’t got the ability he’s got.

“Maybe it takes longer, in all honesty, but if you believe in your ability, and you can beat the names he has beaten, eventually you will get those fans.”

Born in Tokmak, Kyrgyzstan, to a Moldovan father and Korean mother, Bivol began boxing at 6 years old, uprooted to Russia with his family by 11, and was, during this time, a happy child. Boxing, he stresses, was never a vehicle used to “break free,” nor a way for him to find his voice. It was merely something he enjoyed and did for fun.

“I grew up with my family, a good family,” Bivol told me in 2018. “I have a mother and a father and they both worked. I went to a good school. I didn’t have an uncomfortable or harsh life like most of the champions. I just enjoyed my life growing up.

“When I came to boxing, I enjoyed boxing. It was the same with Russia. When I came to Russia, I liked Russia very much. I like Russian people. There are many nationalities in Russia. I feel comfortable there.”

Competing for Russia as an amateur, Bivol won a bronze medal at the Youth World Championships in 2008 and a gold medal at the 2013 World Combat Games. He was raised on a steady diet of Mike Tyson and Roy Jones fights, before later developing a fondness for “Sugar” Ray Leonard. His amateur record, at the time of turning pro in 2014, consisted of a weighty 268 wins and just 15 defeats.

“I learn when I watch [Leonard’s] fights,” he said. “I like to watch his fights before my fights and many times it is the same fights. I watch his fights against [Thomas] Hearns, [Marvin] Hagler, [Roberto] Duran — both fights. I like all of those fights.

“I’m a boxer, I should be better than ‘Sugar’ Ray Leonard and Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali. I think about that a lot. Maybe I will never be better. Of course, I understand this. But if you want to be the best, you should think about being better than everyone else. If you shoot for the stars, maybe you can reach them. Maybe you won’t. Who knows?”

Not one for getting starstruck, or being seduced by bright lights and noise, Bivol has always had a very different idea of what a “hero” represents. It is, to him, a person of understatement; someone whose value is appreciated by others, perhaps only a few, and whose motive is neither fame nor the gathering of accolades and acolytes.

“My father is my hero and comes to every boxing session,” Bivol said. “He is part of my team. He is in the corner. Of course, he’s nervous every time. He once said, ‘Only I know how much pain I feel when my son gets punched. Only me.’

“My mother and my coach are also my heroes. They teach me how to be a boxer and how to be a man. I have learned to be responsible like my father. People who teach me are my heroes; people who are with me all the time.”

Interestingly, at the time of our conversation the Russian light heavyweight with whom Bivol was being linked was not Beterbiev but instead Sergey Kovalev. He was a more likely opponent for Bivol back then; any prospect of a fight against Beterbiev was strictly an idea rather than a certitude.

“I think it will be a good fight,” Bivol said back then of a potential meeting with Beterbiev. “We’re both from Russia and it’s an interesting fight for Russian people. I’m not famous in the world. He’s not famous in the world. But if this fight happens, I will be glad.

“I think we should wait, though. We should have more fights on TV, get more fans, and then this fight will happen eventually.”

Rare is it to have two unbeaten world champions from the same country flourishing at the same time, but that is exactly what boxing had with Beterbiev and Bivol. Not just that, their careers were essentially running parallel, as though in communication with each other. On Nov. 4, 2017, for example, Bivol stopped Trent Broadhurst inside a round to win his first world title: The WBA light heavyweight belt. Then, just seven days after that, Beterbiev knocked out Enrico Kölling in Round 12 to win his first world title: The IBF version. There was, even at that early stage, very little distance between them and very little to separate them, with the prospect of them one day crossing paths almost inevitable. As inevitable, that is, as a Beterbiev knockout win; or as inevitable as Bivol figuring out an opponent in round one.

“Every time I go to the ring, I think I will win,” said Bivol. “You have to be confident. Of course, if I fight Beterbiev, I think I should be winning.”

On Saturday in Riyadh, Dmitry Bivol fights Artur Beterbiev, both his equal and opposite, for a second time. Their first fight, which happened in October, arrived seven years after the pair won their first world titles within a week of each other, and as expected, they were hard to separate on the night. Some observers felt Bivol deserved to win, while others preferred the work of Beterbiev. In the end it was Beterbiev, the aggressor, who triumphed, winning a majority decision after 12 rounds.

For all their closeness, Bivol and Beterbiev remain joined by weight and nationality only, and couldn’t be more different in terms of the way they go about securing the same result. If Bivol is all lateral movement, Beterbiev believes more in the economy of movement and prefers to move only one way: Forward. Similarly, while Bivol pokes and prods and befuddles with variety, Beterbiev has a far greater propensity to land something big and then close the show as soon as he can. It is for this reason Bivol has seen stoppage wins dry up, whereas Beterbiev has knocked out all of his opponents except one: Dmitry Bivol.

That Beterbiev was unable to stop Bivol when they met in October said as much about Bivol’s brilliance as it did any sudden impotence on the part of Beterbiev. It was a reminder to the world that sometimes watching a boxer produce the (almost) perfect fight in order to defuse the threat of a puncher is just as satisfying, if not more so, than seeing a puncher do to the boxer what he has done to so many others before.

“When I watched it live, I had Bivol winning by two points,” says Arthur. “Then I watched it again and I could see why the judges gave it to Beterbiev. He was constantly putting pressure on him and catching Bivol with shots.

“When you box like [Bivol] does, and like I do, you know you have to land a clinical shot in each round to impress the judges. You have to do more. Even when the person is coming forward, you have to do something to show you have control.

“I think Beterbiev will be the same in the rematch and Bivol will box more. I think Bivol wins this time.”

The notion that, to win, a boxer must do more than a puncher by virtue of their good work being subtle and harder to both see and understand is not a new one in boxing, of course. This, in fact, has been the battle many boxers have been fighting since three men at ringside started deciding the outcome of fights after the final bell. Increasingly, too, there is a sense that this is no world for boxers, or technicians, and that the surest way of securing victory, or swaying the uncertain, is to simply maraud forward, throw as many punches as possible, and be seen to be the one trying to achieve what everyone wants to see: The knockout.

That’s fine if you are built like Beterbiev. But for someone like Bivol, not prone to the same urges, it is a little more difficult to suddenly rebrand and behave out of character.

“You get guys who might have a good 10- or 15-second burst in a round and they will win the round because of it when you’ve been boxing smart for the whole three minutes,” says Richards. “Sometimes judges don’t give you the full credit.

“But I understand that every judge looks at a fight differently and appreciates different things. Some people like body shots and some like a guy coming forward, whether they’re landing punches or not. You might then get a judge who does like a bit of pure boxing. But the majority of the time people don’t give credit to the pure boxing they see in the ring. You’ve got to be a real boxing purist to appreciate the art of great boxers. If you’re just a casual, you’re looking at the guy who throws haymakers from his boots and not appreciating good boxing.”

Given his close relationship with Bivol, it comes as no surprise to hear that Smith felt his fighter beat Beterbiev back in October. However, that doesn’t mean that the team’s collective disappointment is going to result in Bivol becoming someone else in fight two.

“People might want a different style now, but he respects the craft of boxing and will just be focused on winning the rematch more clearly,” says Smith. “I think most people you speak to who were ringside, apart from the three most important people, felt that Dmitry Bivol won that fight. Straight after the fight people around ringside were saying to me, ‘Your man has won it.’ That’s why you are a bit shocked when it doesn’t go that way.

“It was a close fight, and there were certainly rounds that were hard to score, but I do think it’s mad that not one of the judges scored it his [Bivol’s] way. One of them had it 116-112 for Beterbiev, which is insane. Sometimes those kinds of scorecards create more of a storyline. If he had lost by a point on each card, it would have been hard to argue. But with a scorecard like that, it does make you question things.”

With the first fight finished, all Bivol and his team can question now is what needs to be done the second time around to convince anybody who was unconvinced in October. Beyond that, there is little Bivol can do to control the narrative that the work of pure boxers requires a keen, trained eye to be fully appreciated.

“While we’re still here, maybe we will be under-appreciated,” says Richards, a boxer after Bivol’s own heart. “We’re not walking around with big muscles, or knocking out bums — we’re actually boxing high-level opposition and having to think and use our IQ and skill. Think of Floyd [Mayweather], [Terence] Crawford and Andre Ward. They were all master technicians from day one, but it wasn’t until they got to the end of their career, or retired, that they got the credit. I think Bivol will be the same.”

As boxing continues to adapt and evolve with modern times, there is every chance that this land becomes inhospitable for throwback technicians like Dmitry Bivol, at least as far as marketability and popularity is concerned. But that won’t change the fact that in years to come, boxing coaches and aspiring boxers will all watch footage of Bivol — whether on phones, tablets or virtual reality headsets — and see, in his technique, the holy grail.

Besides, at a time when everything and everybody is being watched, it is perhaps far better to be studied.