By: Hans Themistode
Artur Beterbiev has gained a reputation as being one of boxing’s biggest and most violent punchers. The current unified light heavyweight titlist has stopped every single one of his brave opponents to amass a perfect record through 17 fights.
Most recently, Beterbiev completed another stellar year. The Russian native scored a tenth-round knockout win over fringe contender Adam Deines. At the tail end of the year, Beterbiev registered a ninth-round stoppage victory over Marcus Browne.
Despite blood pouring down the face of Beterbiev profusely due to an inadvertent head butt, the unified champion pounded Browne into submission. Immediately following the win, Beterbiev revealed that if newly crowned undisputed super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez were willing to move up in weight, Beterbiev would be more than willing to grant him a world title opportunity.
Still, while Beterbiev would be considered one of Alvarez’s most difficult opponents, former two-time welterweight champion Shawn Porter views their possible future showdown as a walk in the park for the pound-for-pound star.
“I think it’s a relatively easy fight, I really do,” said Porter on The Porter Way Podcast Clips.“I really think Canelo’s experience will allow him to do what he has to do fighting off the back foot. I don’t think Canelo is the kind of guy who’s just going to come into the ring with ‘this is who I am and this is what I do and I’m going to beat you.’ I think his experiences will allow him to accept the fact that I have to fight off my back foot a little bit more. This guy is a little bit bigger than me. He has a lot of power but I can make him walk into some stuff and I can beat to the punch every time.”
Before a hypothetical matchup between Alvarez and Beterbiev can come to fruition, the Mexican product will first attempt to achieve more history. With Alvarez becoming the first undisputed world champion in super middleweight history, he’s now set his sights on the cruiserweight division.
Eddy Reynoso, who both trains and manages Alvarez, was recently given the green light by the WBC sanctioning, to allow Alvarez to move up in weight to take on the winner of WBC champion Ilunga Makabu and Thabiso Mchunu who are set to face off on January 29th. Should Alvarez defeat the winner, he would become the first fighter of Mexican descent to win world titles in five separate weight classes.
