Saturday’s Fight in the UK Has a Beterbiev-Gvozdyk Sparkle

Light heavyweights Artur Beterbiev and Oleksandr Gvozdyk fought last Friday in Philadelphia. The match, noted this reporter, among others, was of the sort that doesn’t come down the pike very often. Both competitors were undefeated, both held world title belts, and the odds bore witness that the match could be fairly touted as a 50/50 fight.

Indeed, it was the sort of match that doesn’t come down the pike very often, but son of a gun only one week has passed and here comes another. Saturday’s match at London’s O2 Arena between undefeated world title-holders Regis Prograis (24-0, 20 KOs) and Josh Taylor (15-0, 12 KOs) is a mirror image of Beterbiev-Gvozdyk aside from the difference in weight classes.

Beterbiev stopped Gvozdyk in the 10^th. He was trailing on two scorecards through the completed rounds, but he was the apha fighter during the contest and one could see that he was wearing his opponent down. It was a coming-out party of sorts for the Montreal-based Russian who hadn’t had much exposure on national television.

The Ring magazine, the first entity to update their ratings after the fight, bumped Beterbiev on to their pound-for-pound list, installing him at #9. The other leading pound-for-pound list-makers (TBRB, BWAA, BoxRec, and ESPN) will likely follow suit.

Barring a dull, closely-contested fight, the winner of Prograis-Taylor will likely crack the pound-for-pound ratings too, especially if it happens to be Prograis who at last look was a 3/2 favorite. His U.S. promoter, Lou DiBella, believes it’s a travesty that he isn’t already there. “I’ve worked with some special ones – (Bernard) Hopkins, Jermain Taylor at his top, Sergio Martinez. This guy is special,” exulted DiBella after Prograis dismantled WBA belt-holder Kiryl Relikh.

The Prograis-Relikh fight was staged on April 27 in Lafayette, Louisiana. It pit the #1 (Prograis) and #3 seeds in a semi-final match-up in the World Boxing Super Series. Prograis knocked Relikh to the canvas in the opening round with a hard shot to the liver and it was all downhill from there for Relikh whose corner stopped the fight in the sixth round.

Three weeks later, Josh Taylor won his semi-final match-up. Fighting on his home turf in Glasgow, Scotland, Taylor won a unanimous decision over Ivan Baranchyk, but he had a few anxious moments, a far cry from his previous fight against Ryan Martin where he was so impressive that he evoked comparisons to Scottish legends Ken Buchanan and Benny Lynch. In fact, many savvy Scottish boxing fans, after viewing that fight, were of the opinion that when his career was finished, Taylor, the Tartan Tornado, would be remembered as Scotland’s best boxer ever.

Taylor, trained by Shane McGuigan, is two inches taller and will have a two-and-a-half-inch reach advantage. Although Prograis can certainly bang, the Scotsman is regarded as the harder hitter. The crowd will be overwhelmingly pro-Taylor even though it’s a good six-hour drive from Glasgow to London and that’s in light traffic. However, Prograis, the New Orleans native from Houston, is more fluid and has a more well-rounded game.

The Beterbiev-Gvozdyk fight was heavily-hyped and didn’t disappoint. It was an entertaining scrap. Hopefully this match-up, which has a strikingly similar sheen, will turn out to be as fan-friendly. The fight will air on Sky Sports PPV in the UK and will be live-streamed on DAZN in the United States.

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The other two pieces of the 140-pound title belong to former U.S. Olympian Jose Carlos Ramirez, the pride of California’s Central Valley. At age 27, Ramirez likely hasn’t reached his peak. His last effort, a sixth-round stoppage of WBO belt-holder Maurice Hooker on July 27, was his career-best performance.

A four-belt unification fight between Ramirez and the winner of Prograis-Taylor shouldn’t be all that hard to make. That’s assuming, of course, that Richard Schaefer, the former CEO of Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions and the driving force behind the World Boxing Super Series, is out of the way. There’s bad blood between Schaefer and Ramirez’s promoter Bob Arum, not that bad blood has ever eternally paralyzed a fight when there is big money on the table.

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