Anthony Yarde 23-3 (22) impressed many people with his competitive effort against WBC, WBO and IBF light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev 19-0 (19) at Wembley Arena in London, England on January 28.
You can count among their number Beterbiev’s cutman Russ Abner, who admitted the 31-year-old Brit surprised him.
Yarde got out of the blocks fast, using his speed, athleticism and power to befuddle the undefeated Canadian-based Russian. But true to form, the 38-year-old champion ground his way back into the fight, eventually dropping the tiring Yarde in the eighth and forcing a corner stoppage.
Yarde was leading the fight 68-65 and 67-66 on two of the judges’ scorecards and trailling 66-67 on the third when the contest was halted.
Abner admitted it was a strong performance, perhaps the toughest challenge of Beterbiev’s 10-year pro career.
“The first thing I said to [Beterbiev’s head trainer] Mark [Ramsay] while the fight was going on, I said, ‘this guy was more resistant than all of the other opponents that Beterbiev fought’,” Abner said to BBC 5 Live Boxing.
“He took shots – other guys have taken shots, but they haven’t fought back the way he fought back. Marcus Browne took shots, but he kept crumbling and crumbling and didn’t fight back. This guy fought back. Full credit to him.
“The pressure that Beterbiev puts on, he’s got you in fifth gear when you only want to be in second. He’s got you in fifth early
“You don’t want to expend more energy than you have to and Beterbiev forces you to do that. [Yarde] had to have his guts and his heart, make him fight back, and he threw hard and he did his best to use his power to make Beterbiev respectful and he did. He succeeded in doing that. Great performance.”
Abner praise Yarde – who was having his second crack at a world title following his 11th round knockout loss to then-WBO champion Sergey Kovalev in August 2019 – for his resilience under fire from the heavy-handed Beterbiev.
“I expected stylistically it to be a hard fight, but I figured as soon as we nailed him, he’s going to crumble,” Abner continued.
“But he didn’t and he kept fighting back. So now we’re in the corner [we told Beterbiev], ‘let’s go back to the jab, let’s go back to the jab’.”
According to Abner, Beterbiev was also impressed by the way Yarde stood up to his pressure.
“He said, ‘You’re tough, a lot tougher than I expected’,” Abner said the champion told the challenger. “He got all of our respect. He didn’t badmouth. There always has to be a winner and loser, but boy, he went out on his shield on this one.”
The next assignment for Beterbiev is expected to be a mandatory title defence against WBC number one contender Callum ‘Mundo’ Smith 29-1 (21) of England.
