Coach Tunde Adjayi believes that British light heavyweight Anthony Yarde (23-2, 22 KOs) is ready to fight with the unified world champion representing Canada, Russian Artur Beterbiev (18-0, 18 KOs) – the fight will take place in January in London (England) .
For Adjaya’s ward, this will be the second title attempt. In 2019, Yard went to Chelyabinsk (RF), but failed to beat the local veteran champion Sergey Kovalev – a late early defeat.
“I cried, –
opened up Ajayi. – I cried when Anthony again chose the chance to become world champion. I always knew he would succeed. I always knew that he would become world champion. Do you know what it is? This is a reward for the fact that we were not afraid to go to Russia. And now the Russian will come to us in London.”
Adjayi is sure that everything will be different now, because “the Yard who fought Kovalev and this one are two completely different fighters. You know, experience can’t be bought or borrowed. And in 2019 in Russia, we lost in battle, but won in experience.”
The coach believes that Beterbiev is not dangerous because of his knockout power: “Do you know what Alexander Gvozdyk says about Beterbiev? He says that his striking power is greatly overestimated, but his boxing skills are even more underestimated. Don’t think that we will approach this fight with one plan. No, this is not our method. We will have several plans. And we are not going to impose Mahach, let’s not hope that we are lucky. At this level, you can not rely only on hitting. I already saw it. And I know that Anthony is both a good boxer and a decent jack-of-all-trades.”
Ajayi previously called the fight the “Champions League” and promoter Frank Warren believes “two of the most devastating punchers will meet in the ring.” A little earlier, Yard promised to beat Beterbiev, recalled the duel with Kovalev.