Dmitry Bivol vs Zurdo Ramirez
Dmitry Bivol advancing to 21-0 with another incredible performance and win over Zurdo Ramirez last weekend.
Dmitry Bivol is one of the most complete boxers in the world today, he is in huge contention for fighter of the year and is slowly climbing his way to the top of the pound-for-pound list. This article looks at his most recent performance against Zurdo Ramirez.
One of the best tools in Bivol’s skillset is his footwork, he can maintain and close distance incredibly well. He demonstrated this beautifully against Zurdo Ramirez. The fact he can pull himself in and out of range so fast means he can give the illusion that you can hit him, but by the time you’ve thrown he’s already out of range again. This made Zurdo hesitant on throwing as he was unsure if it would connect and didn’t want to over commit.
Dmitry utilised outstanding counterpunching to effectively land his shots, the speed of his punches bewildered Zurdo, they had a similar effect on Canelo too. A combination of this and his wizardry footwork resulted in him being extremely hard to hit. Zurdo is a fierce body puncher, he favours fighting on the inside which is an environment where he performs at his best. Bivol took his best asset away from him, the slick counterpunching and blistering footwork meant he was never in the pocket long enough to be caught with Zurdo’s body punches.
Although moving up in weight, Zurdo still had the physical advantages being 2 inches taller and having a 3 inch longer reach. Dmitry didn’t want to be fighting a bigger man with 30 career KO’s at close range, it was the perfect gamelan from him. It demonstrates his ability to adapt to his opponents and shows his masterful IQ.
The champions defence was close to being perfect, Dmitry has a lovely high guard when under fire and in the rare moments he did find himself on the end of Zurdo’s punches he caught the body hooks on his elbows and used impressive lateral movement to evade his jab.
Another thing that stood out in this fight was how Dmitry used proactive defence to control and win the lead hand battle. Constantly placing traffic in that punch lane deterred Ramirez from throwing his jab, a punch he often uses to close the distance and land his notorious body shots.
An intelligent performance from Dmitry Bivol, this sets up a unification bout with Artur Beterbiev. It’s looking likely this fight will be in the second half of 2023 as Beterbiev is rumoured to be fighting Anthony Yarde early next year. An exciting fight nevertheless and it’s the one everyone wants to see. The two best light heavyweights competing to see who truly is number one.
