Artur Beterbiev vs Dmitry Bivol undisputed showdown postponed due to injury

The five-versus-five Matchroom against Queensbury event is still taking place on June 1
Fight postponed: Artur Beterbiev had been due to meet Dmitry Bivol in Saudi Arabia in June
Getty Images
Adam Pogrund4 May 2024

The highly-anticipated undisputed light-heavyweight fight between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol has been postponed after Beterbiev picked up a knee injury in training. 

WBC, IBF and WBO champion Beterbiev was scheduled to meet WBA belt holder Bivol on June 1 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but now requires knee surgery having ruptured his meniscus.

"The plan is to reschedule Beterbiev-Bivol before the end of the year," promotersTop Rank announced on Saturday.

Turki Alalshikh, chairman of Saudi Arabia's General Entertainment Authority, confirmed the five-versus-five undercard between Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom and Frank Warren’s Queensberry, including Deontay Wilder’s heavyweight bout against Zhilei Zang, will still go ahead as expected.

“Wishing my brother Artur a speedy recovery,” Alalshikh wrote. “However, the 5v5 event is still on for June 1st.”

Beterbiev is the only world champion who has a 100 per cent knockout ratio, winning all 20 of his professional fights. The Russian-Canadian’s last bout was against British boxer Callum Smith in Canada, where he won with a seventh-round stoppage.

Meanwhile, Bivol is also undefeated in 22 professional bouts in his career, winning 11 by knockout. The Russian beat Lyndon Arthur by unanimous decision in Riyadh last December in his last fight.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in