The experience difference

Before talking about the techniques these fighters bring to the table ahead of their fight, let's first take a look at the experience levels of both guys, because we believe it does play a factor in how the fight will play out. Artur Beterbiev sports a perfect 18-0 professional record with all 18 of those wins coming before the final bell. Anthony Yarde sports a 23-2 professional record with 22 of those wins coming via knockout. If this was all the information you had, you may be thinking they both have approximately the same amount of boxing experience. You may even think Anthony Yarde is the more experienced fighter simply because he has more professional fights, and unlike Beterbiev, has fought to the final bell. However we’re here to tell you no matter how you break it down, Beterbiev is undoubtedly the far more experienced fighter of the 2. Why? Before turning pro, Beterbiev had 300 amateur boxing matches winning 295 of them. Most notably including 2 wins over Sergey Kovalev. Before turning pro, Anthony Yarde had a grand total of 12 amateur boxing matches winning 11 of them. We understand amateur boxing and professional boxing are not the same, but you cannot ignore the skills and knowledge Beterbiev must have gained from having formally fought over 300 different boxers. Our point? We don’t think there is anything Anthony Yarde can bring to the fight that Beterbiev has never seen before and we’re not sure we can say the same with the roles reversed. To add on to this, even though Beterbiev has less professional fights than Yarde, 7 of his fights have been world title matches while Yarde has only had 1 world title fight before this. So while Beterbiev doesn’t have a higher quantity of professional fights compared to Yarde, we think his quality of opposition has been of a higher level.

Another easy win for Beterbiev?

Despite the difference in experience and competition level just mentioned, there’s an old saying that goes “styles make fights” that we believe this will be the reason Anthony Yarde will make this fight more difficult for Artur Beterbiev than the betting odds 1 week out from the fight would suggest. To explain, let's first talk a bit about Artur Beterbiev’s style. Beterbiev is an excellent pressure fighter, often the fighter coming forward and closing the gap to mid or close range where he can set up his power punches. It seems Beterbiev’s main goal once in range is to land his right hand which he often finds success looping around his opponent’s guard at mid-range and sweeping down from above when up close in the pocket. This right hand is also his go-to counter against the jab from his orthodox opponents. You can see in Beterbiev’s last fight against fellow light heavyweight champion Joe Smith Jr., that Smith came into the fight immediately looking to pressure Beterbiev back to prevent Beterbiev from establishing his own pressure game. Smith did this by operating from a constant stiff jab that did cause Beterbiev to move back. However, Beterbiev quickly found the timing for the jab and began countering it by slipping it to the inside and shooting his right hand over the top.

Beterbiev vs Smith Jr. Watch Now (Official Highlight on YouTube)

Beterbiev may be mauling all of his opponents with constant pressure, however, the key to making his pressure game successful, comes down to solid defense and fundamentals. Even though Beterbiev is usually coming forward, he doesn’t do it mindlessly. He first works his way to long range around the tip of his opponent’s jab range. From there he will start showing his guard to his opponent and hold his ground. This tends to bait a jab from his opponent since he’s at a range where only the jab will reach. Since the jab is the most likely punch to come at this range, Beterbiev is easily able to see it and defend it by either pulling back, slipping it, or catching it with his guard. The thing is, whenever a punch misses, a common reaction for the person who just missed, is to move away to protect yourself from a counter and remain defensively responsible. When this happens, Beterbiev is able to follow his opponent which is how we often get to him moving forward and his opponent moving back. When this happens enough, eventually Beterbiev’s opponents overcommit to a jab and since Beterbiev is very good at holding his ground with a balanced fighting stance, he’s ready to counter them for their mistake. You can see this play out many times in his fight against Oleksandr Gvozdyk.

Beterbiev vs Gvozdyk: Watch Now (Official Highlight on YouTube)

Perfect fundamentals?

So Beterbiev’s pressure often starts with good distance management, defense, and counterpunching. Once his opponents miss and get countered enough, they start to become more tentative to throw punches and this is when Beterbiev gets to walk more freely into his desired mid-range to set up his power punches. Eventually, his opponents start to move around a lot to get away from him. The other benefit of this is it causes Beterbiev to move as well which doesn’t allow him to set his feet and sit on his punches. We mentioned that Beterbiev is excellent at holding his ground with a balanced fundamental stance. However, when his opponents move around a lot, we often see Beterbiev chase them down with a shuffle step, which sees him essentially leaping forward with both feet off the canvas. He’ll do this with a jab or a right hand to chase his opponents down. He also likes to lead with a right hand doing a Dempsey shift and end up in southpaw. These are both effective techniques for closing distance quickly, however, whether it's from impatience or lack of respect for his opponent’s punching power, Beterbiev will do this and leave himself open to being countered while off balance, out of his stance, and with forward momentum. If We’re in Yarde’s corner, we’re looking at this very closely.

Anthony Yarde’s money punch

This brings us to the topic of Anthony Yarde. Yarde fights out of the Philly shell with his lead hand low which could spell trouble for him if he doesn’t roll a Beterbiev right hand with his shoulder. Up close, He’ll be most susceptible to Beterbiev’s clubbing and looping right hands that can go right over the shoulder. Yarde will have to smother or step away from these punches which means we’ll likely see Beterbiev’s pressure in action. In his last fight against Stefani Koykov, Yarde showed he does have the ability to counter the lead right hand thrown off a Dempsey shift like Beterbiev likes to do, and Yarde did this with a step back left hook, which we believe is Anthony Yarde’s money punch.

Yarde vs Koykov: Watch Now (Official Highlight on YouTube)

Stefani Koykov may be a far cry from someone the level of Beterbiev, however, Yarde did have a fight with Sergey Kovalev who may be the best boxer on his resume. Yarde was looking for his left hook for most of the fight which he usually looks to use to counter his opponents coming in with punches. His fight with Kovalev was no different as he found himself sitting back and trying to time Kovalev coming in with the jab. Beterbiev doesn’t use his jab anywhere near as much as Kovalev does so we don’t think this will be as much of a factor, but it’s worth mentioning that Yarde was outboxed by Kovalev’s jab as he kept falling for feints that messed up his counter left hook timing. The reason we bring this up is because eventually, Yarde did time up one of Kovalev’s jabs and nearly knocked him out with a left hook. Since we don’t think Beterbiev is as crafty with his jab as Kovalev, and Yarde was eventually able to counter Kovalev’s jab, we’re led to believe Yarde can time a counter left hook on Beterbiev if Beterbiev decides to use that jab off a shuffle step at a bad time. Yarde possesses enough power where that one punch could be all it takes.

##The matchup and final prediction While Yarde has never beaten anyone of the caliber of Beterbiev yet, as the saying goes, styles make fights and we believe Yarde can find a lot of success if he is able to counter Beterbiev coming in with that left hook he loves so much. We believe this fight is actually a good stylistic matchup for Yarde, however, there are also deficiencies in Yarde’s game that make this fight interesting. The most important deficiency for this match is also his best weapon. His left hook. Our biggest issue with his counter left hook is that it isn’t a true “check hook.” A check hook is usually thrown as a defensive maneuver that can be done by either pivoting off the lead foot as you throw the hook and stepping out the back side with the rear foot to avoid the incoming punch or by stepping the lead foot out the back side as you throw the hook and stepping out. Instead, Anthony Yarde throws the left hook with his feet stationary which means he isn’t actively trying to avoid the punch that he’s trying to counter. On top of this, he also tends to keep his head on the centerline as he throws the punch. This is ultimately why he got tagged by Kovalev’s jabs as he was trying to counter them with his left hook. On the other hand, this left hook is a double-edged sword because by remaining stationary, Yarde is able to sit down on it and throw it with more power. High risk, high reward. If he lands one of these, it could very well be the end of the fight.

The other main deficiency in Yarde’s game we see causing problems for him in this fight is his lack of an inside fighting game. Notably again in the Kovalev fight, after he had Kovalev hurt, he went for the knockout and didn’t get it. Kovalev was able to survive by clinching and buying himself time to recover. Had Yarde possessed the skills to either prevent clinches or continue fighting in the clinch, he may have gotten the finish.

Kovalev vs Yarde round 8: Watch Now (Official Highlight on YouTube)

Yarde has shown fatigue in fights where he goes for the finish and doesn’t get it. He tried to correct this in his first fight with Lyndon Arthur by pacing himself more and clinching for rest. However, when you don’t throw enough punches, you might end up losing the fight which is what happened here. Yarde could have capitalized on clinches and landed some punches on the inside before tying up to rest. The reason we bring this up is that we believe this will pose problems for Yarde when he fights Beterbiev who has shown elite inside fighting skills. As mentioned at the beginning, Beterbiev has finished all of his opponents and this is partly due to him not allowing them to clinch.

Anthony Yarde vs Lyndon Arthur 1 Watch Now (Official Highlight on YouTube)

When Beterbiev has his pressure going and is setting up his power punches at mid to close range, his opponents will inevitably try to clinch to stop the onslaught. One thing Beterbiev does to prevent this is he will intercept them by pushing on their head with his forearm to create space and prevent the clinch. However, he doesn’t stop there. He will then step around laterally to the opposite side of the arm he’s using for head control to create an angle for him to punch with his other hand. This is so effective because it makes it so difficult for his opponents to hold him if he’s pushing them and moving away at the same time. It also perfectly lines up his next punch and places him out of his opponent’s line of fire since he stepped around them. Beterbiev has also shown the ability to effectively break clinches if his opponent manages to grab him. In his fight with Gvozdyk, Beterbiev would pivot while pushing Gvozdyk in the opposite direction to break Gvozdyk’s balance and give him enough space to punch which eventually breaks the clinch. Pivoting in the clinch is a common technique used in wrestling and other grappling sports to break the balance, and Beterbiev is one of the few boxers who utilizes this concept.

What’s our final prediction? Artur Beterbiev by knockout. We see Yarde taking his time and looking for counter opportunities as Beterbiev comes forward. We see Yarde having more success in the early rounds than people would expect. We see him cracking under the pressure and moving around a lot which may cause Beterbiev to overcommit and fall into an Anthony Yarde left hook. Yarde could get an early knockout if he lands a good counter-left hook on a badly timed Beterbiev attack but we don’t think this is likely. Beterbiev may adapt to the left hook and feint Yarde into throwing it. This will be Beterbiev’s opportunity to counter Yarde since he will be stationary with his head still on the line after throwing. With his left hook neutralized, Yarde will be forced to fight up close where Beterbiev is best. Yarde won’t be able to rest on the clinch, and will eventually fatigue, and it's only a matter of time before he’s finished.

It would be great to have your thoughts in the comment section below!