Despite the voiced desire to “do everything possible” to organize a fight for the title of absolute light heavyweight champion (up to 79.4 kg) between Artur Beterbiev (19-0, 19 KOs) and Dmitry Bivol (21-0, 11 KOs) this summer ), Carl Moretti, vice-president of Top Rank promotion company, made it clear that a more realistic option, which, obviously, will be given preference, for Beterbiev is to conduct a second consecutive mandatory defense against the official challenger from the WBC and the former world champion in the category below the British Callum Smith (29-1, 21 KOs).
Recall that on the night of January 28-29 in London (England), Arthur successfully defended his WBC / IBF / WBO titles, stopping the WBO mandatory contender from Britain, Anthony Yard, in the 8th round.
“After Artur Beterbiev’s win over Anthony Yarde, we have several options for his (Beterbiev’s) next fight,” Moretti said.
Le Journal de Montreal. – Perhaps we will be obliged to offer the fight to Callum Smith, who is a contender from the WBC. We would like to have this fight in Montreal by the end of the summer.”
For his part, Smith has already said that now is the time to beat Beterbiev.
Source: https://vringe.com/news/162281-beterbiev-kogda-zhdat-boy-so-smitom.htm?rand=141343
