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There were a lot of uncertainties heading into Friday’s light heavyweight title bout between Artur Beterbiev and Marcus Browne. Most pressing was the issue of whether it would happen at all.
As the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has swept over the globe, the city of Montreal and the province of Quebec were among the quickest and sternest anywhere when it came to implementing measures restricting gatherings. On Thursday, a day before the bout, the NHL hockey game between the Montreal Canadiens and Philadelphia Flyers was ordered to be played without fans in attendance. Later that night, it was announced that the Canadiens’ Saturday night game would be postponed.
Beterbiev-Browne was held in the same venue on the day in between those two events. The day prior to the bout, there existed the possibility of the fight happening with spectators as planned, without any spectators, or not happening at all. Up until the morning of the fight, participants and fans didn’t have absolute certainty that the event was even happening.
Once promoter Yvon Michel announced that public health authorities had given the go-ahead for the event to continue as planned, with around 4000 fans indoors, uncertainty made way for the feeling of inevitability that exists every time Beterbiev enters a boxing ring. As boxing’s only world champion with a 100% knockout ratio, he can most accurately say that it is inevitable that he will eventually hurt and stop his opponent.
But on this night, Beterbiev had to battle unforeseen circumstances just as the promotion did, plagued with a gash in the middle of his forehead the depth of a large coin that leaked blood into his eyes and across his face following a clash of heads in the fourth round. A visit with the ringside physician prompted a warning that he would be given “one more round.” Unfortunately for Beterbiev, he was behind on the scorecards after four rounds, and the same was true after round five.
Unfortunately for Browne, the realization that losing a technical decision was looming (Beterbiev couldn’t, of course, know this for certain since open scoring was not in effect) merely sped up the inevitable, and sped up Beterbiev’s methodical process.
As Beterbiev cranked up his output and began to trouble Browne along the ropes with frequency, he was able to convince the doctors that as garish as his wound was, it wasn’t preventing him from winning the fight. His corner, meanwhile, even without expert cutman Russ Anber, was able to both obscure his crimson mask from physicians’ view with a towel as quickly as possible at the end of each round and also treat it to the point that it didn’t appear medically dangerous.
“It was very difficult as the fight continued, I couldn’t see out of this eye,” said Beterbiev at the post-fight press conference, gesturing to his left eye. “Because he’s a southpaw, his front hand, you don’t see it. I think I lost one liter (of blood). Does anyone want to give me blood?”
The changing geography of the fight made Beterbiev’s visual plight a little easier to navigate. Browne, who boxed well and was able to use his mobility and length in the early stages of the fight, found himself against the ropes with great frequency. It would be unfair to both Browne and Beterbiev to suggest his diminishing mobility was a tactical choice that he made. Rather, decisions were being made for him by his mauling opponent and also increasingly damaged body. Browne didn’t opt to stop moving and boxing. He had his space and energy taken away from him by one of boxing’s best pressure fighters and elite fighters overall.
With Browne square and upright against the ropes, Beterbiev had a more stationary target and an opponent unable to trouble him with the jab he had difficulty seeing through red fluid. In round seven, Browne meekly offered a left hand to try to keep Beterbiev away as he retreated to the ropes, but Beterbiev spotted it despite his impairment and nailed him with a left hook to the body which dropped him for the first time in the fight.
By this point, Beterbiev was now ahead, and things once again truly were inevitable. In round nine, Browne found himself in the same position, just on a different side of the ring, and was dropped with a brutal left hook to the body, left hook to the head combination. As referee Michael Griffin, whose shirt was now red, counted to ten, Browne couldn’t muster himself back to his feet.
Beterbiev doesn’t fit into any common tropes as far as “types” of fighters. He’s a pressure fighter, but not a super high punch output pressure fighter as many are, or a porous defensive one as others are. He’s a destructive power puncher, but not a snappy one-punch knockout artist the way we often imagine big punchers to be. He’s also sometimes described as crude, but he’s in fact quite calculating and nuanced. Beterbiev’s pressure is constant and draining physically and mentally. The threat of his power, which is effective whether it lands clean or even in a scoring area or not, and his ability to avoid a reasonable amount of what’s coming at him, makes him difficult to keep at range.
Once he’s on the inside, his bruising strength as a man who naturally weighs more than 200 pounds and his ability to land short shots from interesting angles with the effectiveness one could only normally generate from long range combine to create an overwhelming burden.
Even potential future opponents seem to know this. In 2019, Dmitry Bivol spoke to reporters in the media center prior to Canelo Alvarez-Sergey Kovalev, weeks after Beterbiev won the legitimate light heavyweight crown from Oleksandr Gvozdyk. In evaluating the fight, he said he was not surprised by the outcome because of Gvozdyk’s liking to inside fighting, because, “If you’re fighting Beterbiev (on the inside) you almost have no chance.”
Boxing is often likened to a chess match, a battle of tactical choices, diversions and movements with victory being its checkmate. But there are differences between the best classical chess player in the world, Magnus Carlsen and the world’s best speed chess player, Hikaru Nakamura. In this analogy, Beterbiev wouldn’t be a classical chess player, where players have an abundance of time to consider each movement and on the highest levels, are resigned to losing after just one blunder. Browne would be much closer to a classical chess player, a high-wire act vulnerable fighter with immense skill who is looking to remain completely unscathed in order to win. Beterbiev’s game is speed chess, where mistakes can be made, but time and pressure can ultimately break players into making a fatal error they would have otherwise had time and confidence to avoid.
Beterbiev doesn’t make the perfect move every time, but he makes them with such confidence and force that a resignation or checkmate is simply bound to happen.
Corey Erdman is a boxing writer and commentator based in Toronto, ON, Canada. Follow him on Twitter @corey_erdman