Lyndon Arthur is backing his former foe Dmitry Bivol to defeat David Benavidez, should the pair ever lock horns for the undisputed light heavyweight title.<\/p>\n
Arthur faced Bivol back in 2023 for the WBA belt, losing a unanimous decision in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Bivol was too good for the Manchester man, winning every round on all three cards and registering a knockdown in Round 11. Since then, Bivol has gone on to prove he is the best at 175lbs, defeating Artur Beterbiev for the undisputed title in his second attempt in 2025.<\/p>\n
Benavidez subsequently moved up to light heavyweight, claiming Bivol\u2019s WBC belt after the champion declined a mandatory defense. Benavidez has also been victorious up at cruiserweight, winning the WBA and WBO titles last month against Gilberto Ramirez. That has caused many to believe that Benavidez could now be the top dog at 175lbs, however, Arthur disagrees.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Bivol peppers him. As long as he\u2019s the same Bivol that he was and has been, I think he peppers him,\u201d Arthur told BoxingScene. \u201cBivol is too tricky. He loves boxing too much. He flows so fluently when he throws his punches. Benavidez is an animal, let me not take that away from him. I\u2019m just a fan of Bivol.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arthur rates Bivol as one of the best light heavyweights of the last 20 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith Bivol, it\u2019s just a whole different package,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll never truly know how good he is because I wasn\u2019t fit. I trained for three and a half weeks. I don\u2019t think I was able to push Bivol to a limit that I would have liked to. I think Bivol is the best light heavyweight we’ve seen since Roy Jones Jnr or Andre Ward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arthur would one day like the chance to put his abilities to the test against Bivol again, this time with a full camp behind him.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that\u2019s not me saying I think with a full camp I\u2019d beat him,\u201d Arthur explained. \u201cThat’s just me saying I would love to see where I actually stand with a full camp and what I can do with confidence and fitness.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo this day, I don\u2019t know if he was joking or not, but I hurt him with a body shot and my heart said, \u2018Jump on him.\u2019 My brain said, \u2018Lyndon, you\u2019re not fit. Don\u2019t be so stupid. Don\u2019t even try. [You\u2019ll] get yourself knocked out by the eighth or ninth round.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Before Arthur, 25-3 (16 KOs), can look for a rematch with Bivol, he must first get past Lewis Edmondson at St Mary\u2019s in Southampton tonight on the undercard of Ryan Garner\u2019s vacant WBC interim super featherweight title fight against Michael Magnesi. Edmondson will be fighting in front of his home crowd, but Arthur is experienced and familiar fighting away from home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lyndon Arthur is backing his former foe Dmitry Bivol to defeat David Benavidez, should the pair ever lock…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,6102,10078,9556,9555,218540,100348,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-649302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-boxingscene","tag-david-benavidez","tag-dmitry-bivol","tag-lewis-edmondson","tag-lyndon-arthur","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}