Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol will rematch for the undisputed light heavyweight title on February 22 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, headlining the latest Riyadh Season event on a card stacked with championship bouts.
The main event, announced Monday on social media and billed as "The Last Crescendo," will revisit the October clash in which Beterbiev narrowly edged Bivol via majority decision to unify the division.
In that fight, the 39-year-old Beterbiev, 21-0 (20 KOs), who has spent much of his career training in Montreal, went the distance for the first time. Meanwhile, the 33-year-old Bivol, 23-1 (12 KOs), suffered his first career defeat despite outlanding Beterbiev 142-134 on punches, according to CompuBox. Beterbiev, for his part, landed 90 power shots to Bivol’s 84, highlighting the razor-thin margin.
The undercard will see IBF heavyweight titleholder Daniel Dubois, 22-2 (21 KOs), defend his title against Joseph Parker, 35-3 (23 KOs). Dubois, 27, from the UK, is on a three-fight win streak following a 2023 stoppage loss to Oleksandr Usyk. Parker, 32, a New Zealand former titleholder, enters on a five-fight win streak, with notable victories over Deontay Wilder and Zhilei Zhang. Parker’s last title fight was a loss to Anthony Joshua in 2018, while Dubois knocked out Joshua in his most recent fight.
WBC lightweight titleholder Shakur Stevenson, 22-0 (10 KOs), will face Floyd Schofield, 18-0 (12 KOs). Stevenson, 27, originally from Newark and now training in Houston, accepted the challenge from Schofield, 22, nicknamed “Kid Austin,” following Schofield’s unanimous decision win over Rene Tellez Giron last month, after Schofield called Stevenson out. Their exchanges on social media helped build anticipation for this showdown, which many believed to be out of reach for Schofield.
Carlos Adames, 24-1 (18 KOs), will defend his WBC middleweight title against Hamzah Sheeraz, 21-0 (17 KOs). Adames, 30, based in Las Vegas, has been plagued by inactivity (fighting just once per year since 2022) but is riding a six-fight win streak. Sheeraz, 25, from the UK, earned the title shot with a stoppage of Tyler Denny in September.
The WBC interim junior middleweight title will be contested between Vergil Ortiz Jnr, 22-0 (21 KOs), and Israil Madrimov, 10-1-1 (7 KOs). Ortiz, 26, from Grand Prairie, Texas, won a majority decision over Serhii Bohachuk in August to capture the title. Madrimov, 29, from Uzbekistan, is coming off a unanimous decision loss to Terence Crawford in August in Los Angeles, marking Crawford’s debut at 154lbs. More perplexing is that Madrimov will be scheduled for this fight while keeping his fight on December 21 with Bohachuk.
“It’s surprising to see, considering Serhii knocked Vergil down twice and sent him to the hospital [August 10 in Ortiz’s narrow victory by decision in Las Vegas],” Tom Loeffler, Bohachuk’s promoter told BoxingScene on Monday.
Madrimov would be left with just over two months to recover and prepare against a WBC interim titleholder who has knocked out every foe except Bohachuk.
Also on the card, 41-year-old Zhilei Zhang, 27-2-1 (22 KOs), will face Germany’s Agit Kabayel, 25-0 (17 KOs), for the WBC interim heavyweight title. Zhang, who twice stopped Joe Joyce before losing to Parker, rebounded with a dramatic knockout of Wilder in June. Kabayel, 32, earned this opportunity by stopping Frank Sanchez and Arslanbek Makhmudov in back-to-back fights.
Opening the event, Joshua Buatsi, 19-0 (13 KOs), will defend his WBO interim light heavyweight title against Callum Smith, 30-2 (22 KOs). Buatsi, 31, a 2016 Olympic bronze medalist training in California with Virgil Hunter, is coming off wins over Dan Azeez and Willy Hutchinson in 2024. Smith, 34, rebounded from a stoppage loss to Beterbiev with a fifth-round knockout of Carlos Galvan on Saturday.
Lucas Ketelle is a proud member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and author of “Inside The Ropes of Boxing” (available on Amazon). Contact him on X @LukieBoxing.