Artur Beterbiev

Artur Asilbekovich Beterbiev (Бетербиев Асильбекан Артур; Артур Асильбекович Бетербиев; born 21 January 1985) is a Russian and Canadian professional boxer.

He won the 2006 European Amateur Boxing Championships beating Kenneth Egan and Ismail Sillakh among others.

He beat Egor Mekhontsev but lost to two-time world champion Evgeny Makarenko in 2006.

As an amateur, Beterbiev won a silver medal at the 2007 World Championships, gold at the 2008 World Cup and 2009 World Championships, as well as gold at the 2006 and 2010 European Championships, all in the light-heavyweight division.

In 2007 he beat future unified light-heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev in the semi-finals, and eventually beat Evgeny Makarenko in finals to qualify for the World Championships.

In the finals of the World Championships he faced the little-known Abbos Atoev but lost in an upset.

At the 2008 Olympics he beat Kennedy Katende 15:3, then at the round of 16 he fell controversially to local boxer Zhang Xiaoping who went on to win the gold medal.

At the 2009 World Championships, he beat young Cuban Jose Larduet and Uzbek Elshod Rasulov to claim the light heavyweight title.

At the 2011 World Championships he lost in quarter-finals to eventual winner Oleksandr Usyk by 13–17.

He also reached the quarter-finals of the heavyweight bracket at the 2012 Olympics.

Currently, Beterbiev is ranked as the world best light heavyweight by The Ring, ESPN, and Transnational Boxing Rankings Board (TBRB), and second by BoxRec.

He is also ranked as the world's eight best active boxer, pound for pound, by BoxRec, seventh by the TBRB, fifth by The Ring, eight by the Boxing Writers Association of America and seventh by ESPN.

At the 2012 Olympics he edged out Michael Hunter but lost again by 13–17 to Usyk.

Both of these were in the heavyweight division.

Beterbiev had more than 300 amateur fights.

Beterbiev moved to Montreal to pursue a professional career.

He is particularly known for his exceptional punching power, having won all of his professional fights by knockout or stoppage since debuting in 2013.

Currently, he is the only world champion in boxing with a 100% knockout ratio.

Beterbiev competed as a light-heavyweight and heavyweight in his amateur career.

He won his professional debut via a second-round TKO over Christian Cruz at the Bell Centre on 8 July 2013.

Beterbiev fought on the undercard of Jean Pascal vs. Lucian Bute, beating Gabriel Lecrosnier by TKO on the fourth round.

After winning his first five professional bouts, Beterbiev would face off against former IBF light-heavyweight champion Tavoris Cloud for the vacant NABA title on 27 September 2014.

After a tentative opening minute from both fighters, Beterbiev opened up and began landing powerful shots that visibly rocked Cloud.

In the final minute, the Russian would drop his opponent three times via combinations.

Before this fight, Cloud had never been dropped in his professional career.

Beterbiev would close the show in round two, landing multiple hard shots to the head that knocked Cloud out, giving Beterbiev his first title.

In December 2014, Beterbiev stopped light heavyweight prospect Jeff Page Jr. in two rounds, winning the vacant IBF North American and NABO light-heavyweight titles.

However, Beterbiev was dropped for the first time in a professional fight in the first round of the fight by a straight right to the head.

"I felt a bit sleepy before the fight. I think I just lost my concentration for a fraction of a second," Beterbiev said of the knockdown.

Afterwards, Beterbiev would face off against another former IBF world champion, Gabriel Campillo, with his North American title at stake.

Both men began cautiously until Beterbiev dropped Campillo late in the first round.

The Russian slowly wore down his foe with multiple straight rights to the body.

Finally in the fourth, Beterbiev would land a straight/uppercut hybrid that would hit Campillo square on the chin, and followed it up with a perfunctory left hook before walking to his corner while his opponent slid to the canvas, barely conscious.

The PSI detector in his gloves stated that the first punch landed with 973 pounds per square inch.

Beterbiev improved his record to 9–0 against Alexander Johnson on 12 June 2015, at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago.

Beterbiev knocked Johnson down twice in the fifth and a third time in the seventh before finishing him at 1:38 of the round, clobbering him with a left hook and finishing him off with an overhand right that put Johnson through the ropes down and out.

With the win, Beterbiev added the vacant WBO International light-heavyweight title to his other four minor titles.

In June 2016, Beterbiev defeated Ezequiel Maderna by round 4 TKO, dropping him four times along the way.

Beterbiev's eleventh professional win came against Isidro Prieto, whom he knocked out after a flurry of punches at the end of the first round.

He is a unified champion in the light-heavyweight division, having held the International Boxing Federation (IBF) title since 2017, the World Boxing Council (WBC) title since 2019, and the World Boxing Organization (WBO) title since 2022.