Beterbiev Embellishes His Claim as Top Light Heavy in Stopping Gvozdyk

Minutes after Artur Beterbiev had scored three knockdowns of Oleksandr Gvozdyk that did count in the 10^th round, prompting referee Gary Rosato to wave an end to an historic and entertaining light heavyweight bout, someone asked the winner if he knew he was actually behind on two of the three official scorecards at the time of the stoppage.

The bearded, Montreal-based Russian, who now has won all 15 of his professional outings inside the distance, didn’t seem to mind or care that he might have been in danger of losing on points, had it come to that. When you are accustomed to scoring knockouts, taking the outcome out of the hands of judges with pencils, the perhaps natural tendency is to assume that the familiar pattern will again play itself out as it always had.

“First knockdown, second knockdown, third knockdown, I don’t count,” Beterbiev said of a performance that wasn’t exactly flawless, but nonetheless might have embellished his claim of being the best 175-pound on the planet. “I am just working. I just continue working until the referee stop it.”

Now, about that bit of history that was made Friday night, before a pro-Gvozdyk on-site turnout of 3,283 in the Liacouras Center on Temple University’s North Philadelphia campus, and an ESPN viewing audience. It marked the just the fifth unification of the light heavyweight division since 2000. No fighter has held all four alphabet-organization titles since the dawn of the 21^st century, something Beterbiev is eager to correct and Top Rank founder and CEO Bob Arum is just as eager to help him accomplish moving forward. Now that Beterbiev has added Gvozdyk’s WBC strap to the IBF belt he already held, not to mention the lineal title that also had belonged to the slick-boxing Ukrainian, Beterbiev believes he deserves to be more widely acknowledged as best of the best.

Although Beterbiev’s next fight, early in 2020, almost certainly will come against his IBF mandatory challenger, China’s Meng Fanlong (16-0, 10 KOs), he envisions more unification showdowns, against WBA champ Dmitry Bivol (17-0, 11 KOs) and the winner of the Nov. 2 pairing of WBO ruler and fellow Russian Sergey Kovalev (34-3-1, 29 KOs) and WBA/WBC middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez (51-1-2, 35 KOs), especially if the survivor is Kovalev.

“Unification or mandatory, it doesn’t matter,” Beterbiev said. “I just continue. I’m focused on titles, not names.”

There might also be a rematch with Gvozdyk (17-1, 14 KOs) to be fitted into his schedule at some point, given the fact that “The Nail” actually led on the scorecards of judges John McKaie (87-84) and Ron McNair (86-85) through the nine completed rounds. John Poturaj was the dissenter, having Beterbiev ahead by 87-83.

Punch statistics seemingly did not support the tallies of McKaie and McNair, as Beterbiev outlanded Gvozdyk, 161 to 118, in total punches and 113-94 on power shots. But statistics alone do not tell the story; although Gvozdyk had his moments, Beterbiev did not seem visibly affected when he was on the receiving end. The same could not be said of Gvozdyk, who clinched often in the ninth round and visibly appeared to be gassed and hurting prior to the climactic 10^th.

“Gvozdyk was outboxing him early, but the `Beast’ just wore him down and finally took him out,” said Bob Arum, who has both fighters in his deep promotional stable. “He’s one of the strongest light heavyweights I’ve ever seen. He has tremendous energy, takes a great punch and stays in there until he finally wears his opponent out.”

It also would appear that Beterbiev is not easily distracted, as evidenced by what happened in the closing moments of the first round, which Gvozdyk appeared to be winning. When Beterbiev wrestled Gvozdyk to the canvas without a punch being thrown, Rosato initiated a count, potentially turning a 10-9 round for Gvozdyk into a 10-8 for Beterbiev. Greg Sirb, head of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission, quickly ruled that there had been no knockdown, but the possibility of a three-point swing in the very first round might have been unnerving to a lot of fighters. Not so with Beterbiev.

Twice more before the fateful 10^th did Gvozdyk wind up on the deck, both times being ruled slips by Rosato, whom, Arum said, “didn’t cover himself in glory the whole fight.”

Despite the disappointingly small attendance — a majority of attendees apparently Ukrainian expatriates or visitors to the U.S. — the main event drew a Who’s Who of boxing notables: Tyson Fury, Bernard Hopkins, Vasiliy Lomachenko, Oleksandr Usyk, Andre Ward, Teofimo Lopez, Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller, Richard Commey, Paulie Malignaggi and Jesse Hart.

In other bouts:

*The ESPN-televised lead-in to Beterbiev-Gvozdyk also was a star turn of sorts for Uzbekistani welterweight Kudratillo Abdukakhorov (17-0, 9 KOs), the IBF’s No. 1 contender who took a wide nine-round (yes, that’s right) unanimous decision over Luis Collazo (39-8, 20 KOs), the 38-year-old former WBA 147-pound title-holder from Brooklyn. An unintentional clash of heads in the 10^th round opened a nasty cut in Collazo’s right eyelid, a companion piece to the cut above the left eye he had suffered earlier in the fight. If all that wasn’t enough, Collazo, a southpaw, appeared to have injured his left bicep in the fifth round.

“I would like to fight for the title next,” said Abdukakhorov, whose No. 1 ranking puts him at or near the front of the line for a shot at IBF champion Errol Spence Jr., who is recovering from a recent automobile accident. “If he’s ready to fight soon, I would like to fight him. If he has to vacate the title, then I will fight whoever they put in front of me.”

*Brothers Joseph Adorno and Jeremy Adorno, both from Allentown, Pa., continued to look like future stars. Joseph (14-0, 12 KOs), a 20-year-old lightweight, floored Argentina’s Damian Sosa (9-3, 7 KOs) twice en route to an emphatic first-round stoppage, while Jeremy (3-0, 1 KO), an 18-year-old super bantamweight, was never pressed in scoring a four-round unanimous decision over Misael Reyes (1-3), of Kansas City, Kan.

*South Philadelphia heavyweight Sonny “The Bronco” Conto (5-0, 4 KOs), a sparring partner of lineal champion Tyson Fury, gave local fans something to cheer about, if only briefly, when opponent Steve Lyons (5-6, 2 KOs), from Larose, La., embarrassed himself by quitting on his stool after the first round of a scheduled four-rounder.  During the three minutes during which Lyons gave the impression that he’d rather be back on the bayou, Conto landed a couple of hard, snapping jabs and pronounced himself as having the best in the division other than Fury’s. “He’s the present, I’m the future,” Conto said of Fury, who accompanied him during his ring walk.

*Julian “Hammer Hands” Rodriguez (14-0, 12 KOs), a super lightweight from Hasbrouck Heights, N.J., put Leonardo Doronio (17-17-3, 11 KOs) down and out with a nifty left hook to the jaw in the sixth round of a scheduled six-rounder.

*Super lightweight Josue Vargas (15-1, 9 KOs), of the Bronx, N.Y., pitched an eight-round shutout at Johnny Rodriguez (9-5-1, 6 KOs), of Denver, winning by 80-72 margins on all three scorecards. Vargas also registered a flash knockdown in in round two, so perhaps he was even shorted a point on those cards.

*On a night where light heavyweights topped the marquee, Michael Seals (24-2, 18 KOs), of Atlanta, did his best to drop his name into the mix of future challengers with a one-round stoppage of Argentina’s Elio Trosch (14-9-2, 7 KOs), the put-away coming on a left hook off a right cross.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams for Top Rank

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