Bivol v Beterbiev next!

[Spicoli]

Wow, Beterbiev says he'll be better next and then says Bivol is better skilled than him tonight . Must be a language barrier.

He's Russian lol?

Russian-Canadian. Eh

Beterbiev has a dry sense of humour.

It was a quality contest where Bivol was winning early but Beterbiev slowly came on strong later.

Bivol landed the eye catching punches but Beterbiev was more dominant in the rounds.

Very good fight.

The literal words from his mouth were Bivol more skilled than me. Other than maybe the 11th I'm not sure where the domination of Betrbiev was. He fought in gaps with very little sustained. His body work was MIA for the vast majority. Great match up, good fight. They def need to rematch but we all know Bivol will not get the rematch. I'd love to be wrong though because both deserve it.

When I was younger many years ago I would get what I call the bias eye. When you focus so much on the guy you want to win or the guy you are hoping to win or the guy you think will win. You find yourself watching only his movements, his slips, his jabs landed, his flurries, his feints, his combination etc. You become blind to what your hero's opponent is doing. I'm not mocking you but its taken me years to balance the judgment of a fight and watch every angle with a non bias view. Tonight I swayed because I could see the commentary lean towards Bivol noting when bivol landed and not so much when Beterbiev landed. I have no idea why they do tis other than the assumption that they favoured bivol before the fight started.

You really have to be honest with yourself and judge a fight for yourself.

By default I learned to tune Bradley out years ago. Commentary in general always has that one house fighter apple polisher yelling up a certain side. As an esthetic and key feature on a broadcast it can be frustrating, but you learn to tune it out and let YOUR eyes read what is unfolding to you. I don't get caught up in cheerleaders unless they're the ring card gals. My bias eye was heavy when I started scoring fights in the early 90's. Often I would shade rounds 10-10 and look back calling a fight a robbery but then realize I had 4,5 "even" rounds . Which in effect is saying, well I have no idea who won that round(s) thus the fight. Sure, we have the occasional even round, but you learn to observe the subtle differences playing out and gameplan execution. Often however so small in close rounds. Used to also try scoring minute to minute as even rounds are near impossible then. End of the day after 30 years and many wrong, and many right I tend to go with the cleaner busier boxer, effective puncher doing more of what he genuinely want to do. Scoring is indeed very subjective and in this newer era I've seen a lot of fall back on punch stats. Those also can be pretty misleading imo.