Bob Arum, or at least someone Tweeting on behalf of Bob Arum (which seems way more likely), says that Artur Beterbiev will indeed travel to London to face Anthony Yarde next, and they do hope after that to put together an undisputed title fight at 175 lbs “early next year.”
The working date floating around for Beterbiev vs Yarde has been Oct. 29.
Beterbiev (18-0, 18 KO) has the WBC, IBF, and WBO light heavyweight titles now, picking up the latter by smashing Joe Smith Jr inside of two rounds this past Saturday. Yarde (22-2, 21 KO) has been waiting as WBO mandatory, allowing Beterbiev vs Smith to happen, and was also in the building in New York and on the ESPN broadcast.
A mandatory is a mandatory if everyone chooses to enforce it, and obviously this is going to be enforced. Yarde, 30, legitimately wants the fight and fears nobody.
As for WBA titleholder Dmitry Bivol, Eddie Hearn has previously said they expect to have Bivol return in September or October to line him up with Canelo Alvarez’s third fight against Gennadiy Golovkin on Sept. 17. If Bivol and Canelo both win, the idea is to date a rematch between those two next May, which probably means that Bivol vs Beterbiev would not happen in January or February of 2023.
As we said on this week’s podcast, the closest we probably are to a Bivol vs Beterbiev undisputed title fight is probably the summer of 2023, and that requires both of them to hang on to their belts in the meantime.