week, it potentially impacts next months’ November 11th fight between #2 IBF Artur Beterbiev (11-0, 11 KOs) and Enrico Koelling (23-1, 6 KOs), who were supposed to be fighting in an IBF 175 lb. title eliminator bout.
The winner of the Beterbiev-Koelling fight would have been the IBF mandatory challenger to Ward. But now that Ward has retired, it’s likely that the International Boxing Federation will make the Beterbiv vs. Koelling fight for the vacant IBF title. That’s what Dan Rafael thinks will happen.
”Most likely yes,” said Rafael at ESPN when asked if the IBF light heavyweight title will be on the line for the Beterbiev vs. Koelling fight.
This is good news for Beterbiev, 32, if he gets a chance to fight for the full IBF light heavyweight title instead of it just being an eliminator. You never know though. If the International Boxing Federation wants the winner of the Beterbiev vs. Koelling fight to jump through another hoop in order to claim their vacant IBF 175 lb. title, then they can certainly drag it out longer and make the winner fight someone else. I don’t think they will though. It’s not good for the IBF not to have a champion for a prolonged period of time.
Some boxing fans think Ward retired this week in order to avoid having to defend his IBF title against Beterbiev, who is likely to beat Koelling on November 11 to become the guy that Ward would have had to face if he wanted to keep his IBF title. Beterbiev, a 2-time Russian Olympian with knockout power in either hand, is a much different type of fighter than Sergey Kovalev. Ward beat Kovalev in back to back fights recently. Ward exposed Kovalev’s lack of inside game, and took advantage of that in both fights to beat him.
Beterbiev is much different. He’s a superb inside fighter, with the ability to knockout his opponents with short punches thrown on the inside. Ward would have had to come with a completely different game plan for him to have a chance of beating Beterbiev, because he would have been in danger of being knocked out by him on the inside.
Beterbiev is a very good fighter on the outside as well with 1-punch power. Ward would have had his hands full against Beterbiev. Did Ward retire in order to avoid Beterbiev? We’ll never know. What we do know is Ward won’t have to face the hard hitting Beterbiev know, which is obviously a good thing for him. Beterbiev beat Kovalev twice in the amateur ranks in Russia.
Kovalev failed to bring Ward down, but he came awfully close to doing that in the first fight. But with an even better Beterbiev staring down at him, did Ward get cold feet at the thought of mixing it up with the hungry Russian fighter?