The two light heavyweights put on another instant classic for the undisputed crown in Riyadh this past Saturday night.
Over 12 rounds that were contested at the very highest level of the sport, Dmitry Bivol earned his revenge over Artur Beterbiev in their rematch at The Last Crescendo.
Beterbiev got the nod in their first encounter last October with two judges scoring the fight in his favor whilst one of them had it as a draw.
When the final bell sounded, boxing fans awaited the result of their second epic clash following some controversial cards from earlier on in the night.
Most fans were ultimately satisfied after Bivol took the win with two judges scoring it in his favor with the third judge seeing it as a draw once again.
Boxing fans react after AI judge presents its scorecard for Beterbiev vs Bivol 2
On this occasion, the scorecards themselves weren’t that controversial with both 116-112 and 115-113 in favor of Dmitry Bivol seeming like a more than reasonable outcome.
However, this isn’t always the case in big fights and one way that this could be improved is with the introduction of AI.
There is always going to be pushback in any sport for the inclusion of AI which makes key decisions more procedural and less of a talking point but in theory, it should lead to less controversy by removing the human element of personal perspective or bias.
Following the outcome of the fight, Turki Alalshikh posted a graphic on X of how the AI judge scored the bout which allows for comparison to its human equivalents.
As was the case in their first encounter, the fight went back and forth which leads to some variation on the scorecards but for the most part, you can clearly see the momentum curve of the bout across the three human cards.
Bivol started the fight well in the early rounds before Beterbiev came back into it to either tie it up or take a slight lead at the halfway point.
From there, Bivol started to pull away and despite Beterbiev ending the fight on a round that all three judges had in his favor, it wasn’t enough to sway the fight at that point.
The AI judge reflects a lot of the same points with Bivol winning rounds 1-3, Beterbiev than taking the next four before Bivol regained control of the fight for the remainder.
From face value alone, the only glaring gap between them is that the AI judge did not score the final round for Beterbiev unlike all three of the human judges, giving it a final card of 116-112 for Bivol.
“Perfect scorecard,” one X user wrote in a glowing review of the AI’s performance whilst many pointed out the 12th round outcome.
Aside from that one questionable round, the response seems fairly positive for this fight in particular with many fans sharing the same sentiment of, “That’s a damn good card ngl.”
Beterbiev vs Bivol 2 was not the scorecard that needed an extra pair of eyes
As is evident in some of the replies to the AI scorecard, the outcome of Artur Beterbiev vs Dmitry Bivol 2 was far from the most divisive scorecard at The Last Crescendo.
Many fans were not happy about the result of Hamzah Sheeraz vs Carlos Adames as the undefeated 25-year-old looked to win his first world title.
At the end of 12-rounds, the fight was declared a split decision draw with one judge scoring it 115-114 for Sheeraz, one having it widely in favor of Adames at 110-118 and the other calling it right down the middle at 114-114.
A controversial scorecard in the bout between Callum Smith and Joshua Buatsi didn’t stop the correct result from happening but on this occasion, a lot of fans called robbery after believing that Adames deserved to get his hand raised.