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Artur Beterbiev controversially beat Dmitry Bivol to become the undisputed king of the light-heavyweight division on Saturday evening and the official, round-by-round scorecards from each judge have now been revealed.
Beterbiev entered the highly-anticipated clash in Saudi Arabia as holder of the WBC, WBO and IBF belts, with victory adding Bivol’s WBA title to his collection and ensuring he is the first undisputed light-heavyweight champion to hold all four major belts since the great Roy Jones Jr in 2002.
But the win wasn’t without controversy. Beterbiev was given the majority decision when the judges’ scorecards read 114-114, 115-113, 116-112 in the Russian-Canadian’s favour.
The last of those scorecards was particularly baffling, given that the bout was widely seen as tense and tight, with little to choose between the fighters. A narrow victory either way, or even a draw, was the general consensus, so for Beterbiev to be awarded such a large margin of victory by one judge caused consternation.
The official scorecards show that it was judge Pawel Kardyni who authored the controversial scorecard, deeming that Beterbiev recovered from a slow start to win every round from the third to the seventh and then finished strongly by claiming the 10th, 11th and 12th.
He was the only judge to go against Bivol in the fourth round, in the most egregious example of him disagreeing with his fellow scorers.
Kardyni, judge Manuel Oliver Palomo (who scored it 114-114) and judge Glenn Feldman (who scored it 115-113 to Beterbiev) were actually completely united in 10 of the 12 rounds but that fourth round and the sixth (where Palomo opted for Bivol but Feldman and Kardyni went with Beterbiev) caused the disparity in the final scores.
After watching his man suffer the first loss of his professional career to fall to 23-1, Bivol’s promoter Eddie Hearn slated the decision, with judge Kardyni the particular focus of his ire.
Hearn told DAZN: “In one of the biggest fights of our generation, the most important fight of Dmitry Bivol’s life, you give him four rounds in that fight? It’s absolutely disgusting.
“You heard Beterbiev’s corner in the 10th round say ‘you have to knock him out to win this fight’. They stood, backed up to their corner – they knew Artur Beterbiev lost this fight. Top Rank [Bivol’s promoters] knew Artur Beterbiev lost this fight.
“I’m absolutely baffled and disgusted by a scorecard of 116-112. That judge should never work again. Four rounds [to Bivol] in a fight of this magnitude is disgusting.”
Frank Warren, meanwhile, said he scored the fight for Bivol by “a couple of rounds”, calling the 116-112 scorecard “ridiculous” and “a joke”.
