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🥊 Heavy Hitters
Welcome to this week’s edition of The Fight With Teddy Atlas Newsletter, your one stop shop for all things combat sports related, brought to you by Teddy and The Fight team.
Every Friday We Bring You:
A combat sports news digest with all the headlines you need to know from Boxing and Mixed Martial Arts.
Highlights from the podcast and across the fight world.
Fight times and information you need to know ahead of time.
How to’s and tips for Boxing from Teddy himself.
Fight News From Around The 🌍
A Step Closer To Undisputed
Artur Beterbiev, boxing's only active world champion with a 100% KO ratio, will take to the ring again on Saturday and defend his WBC, IBF and WBO titles in London.
Stepping in with him is local boy Anthony Yarde, who has 21 of his 22 career wins by way of knockout and is coming off avenging his most recent career defeat by way of a 4th round knockout.
Although he has more professional bouts than Beterbiev, it by no means indicates a gap in experience. Beterbiev has a very deep amateur career (having faced and dropped Oleksandr Usyk), and the quality of his professional opponents outweighs Yarde's considerably.
In Yarde's only step up to world level thus far, he was stopped in 11 rounds by a past his prime Sergey Kovalev. It was perhaps too early for the relatively inexperienced Brit, who despite this still pushed Kovalev to the brink in the 8th round and looked close to a stoppage.
Whether Beterbiev will offer the same kind of openings as Kovalev did remains to be seen, as Beterbiev is a much more destructive force at this stage and possesses excellent boxing skills to go along with his scary power.
The Russian also has his eyes on all the marbles at light heavyweight, with the last piece of the undisputed puzzle being held by the current 2022 Fighter of the Year and fellow countryman Dmitry Bivol.
Even though overlooking a dangerous puncher like Yarde would be a big mistake, in all likelihood we are looking at another knockout being added to the Artur Beterbiev collection, setting up one of the best fights we could see in 2023.
What to look for in the fight:
Exchange. Unlike most of Beterbiev's opponents, Yarde will want to exchange with him as it's going to be his best chance of winning. Callum Johnson (who is arguably on the same level as Yarde) dropped Beterbiev during an exchange of left hooks back in 2018, and Yarde has the power to replicate this.
Pressure. Yarde likes to pick his moments to engage and isn't the busiest in either attack or defence. Beterbiev won't allow him to have the space he wants and how long the fight last could come down to how Yarde reacts to the pressure.
Mixing it up. Although Beterbiev is predominantly a pressure fighter, he can also step back and counter punch, as he has the technical foundations to be able to catch fighters mid combination. Don't be surprised if he does this against a much less technically sound Yarde.
Our 2023 Boxing Wishlist
Teddy and Ken recently outlined the fights that Boxing needs for 2023, including Bivol vs Beterbiev and Fury vs Usyk. Check out the video below and let us know if they've missed any.
Fight ⏰ for this weekend
Boxing: Beterbiev vs Yarde (Saturday 28th/Sunday 29th)
🇺🇸 Full Card: 2pm Eastern/ 11am Pacific | Main Event: 5pm Eastern/ 2pm Pacific
🇬🇧 Full Card: 7pm | Main Event: 10pm
🇦🇺 Full Card: 6am Eastern/ 4am Western | Main event: 9am Eastern/ 7am Western