Adam Haniver [00:00:00]:
Bivol versus Beterbiev. Wow. What a fight. Incredible. Let's break it down with stability versus mobility and why those two things were so important on the night. Here we go. 

So episode 104, Bivol beats Beterbiev in the rematch and is now undisputed World Light Heavyweight Champion. Incredible bout. Even better than the first one in terms of entertainment value, as I mentioned. Just want to have a little bit of a breakdown as to why I think he was successful this time. And the reason why I'm jumping on this now is because I was delivering a session this morning. It's Monday. The. What's the date today? I can't even know what the date is. 20 something of February. And this morning was delivering a DiSE session to the boxers. Just called the session Dimitri Bivol and why he was successful. So we had a look at the video, adjusted the highlights, and obviously didn't watch all the 12 back. But we just watched the highlights, and the main thing that came up that we kind of discussed was mobility versus stability. 

Okay? So to be a successful boxer, we need both, right? We need to be mobile so we can move in and out of range, make people miss, get into range to punch adjust all those things. We have to be mobile, of course, but we also have to be stable. So with stability, that means we can produce force from the floor onto the target area. We can defend ourselves well, and we keep our balance in shape, which is always the first protocol in the boxing model that we talk about with The Box Gathering. Okay, so very simple. Stability, keeping our shape, keeping our balance, being able to generate force, keeping the centre of gravity where it needs to be. And then we have mobility, which is the ability to actually move that structure and to produce force in different places to defend and attack. Okay, there's a couple of little definitions there. So this is what I think's happened in bout one. 

I think Bivol lost it and I actually did give it to Beterbiev. I actually did give him the bout by two rounds on the first one as I was watching it and a lot of people gave it to Bivol. I know, so there's a bit of an uproar there. But I actually gave it to Beterbiev in the first fight. Now the second fight it was, I think the scores were exactly the same, but the other way around to Bivol. The cards were exactly the same across all three. Now this is what I think what happened in the first bout. I remember thinking Bivol is moving well using the jab, but there wasn't enough coming back from him to really keep Beterbiev off all the time. Now as he was very mobile, it wasn't setting his feet enough times to let ones, twos, threes and fours go to score and to keep him at bay. But in contrast, if you watch the second bout, so this Saturday's just gone what Bivol did this time, he was able to get his shots off a lot quicker. So he would adjust his feet off to the sides as usual, take half a step back, set that back foot, and then he would throw a solid jab, but often then would kind of go through these gears and throw a 1, 2, a 1, 2 lead hook, a 1, 2 lead hook, Rear hand. To be fair, there wasn't much else that he threw at all. I don't really remember there being an uppercut. I don't remember there being any hooks to the body, overhands or anything like that. It was very simple. It was a jab, it was a backhand, it was a lead hook, and it was another backhand on the end. So it was just like a progression of these four shots put together either separately in a duet tripled or put together in a four punch combination. That's all he seemed to throw. 

But what I like this time is I think this time the reason why he's successful is he was managed to kind of walk the line between mobility and stability. He was a lot more stable this time. So he'd adjust his feet, set his feet and throw any one of those four shots like say in combination or singles or doubles, etc, etc, and at that point, if you watch a lot of the highlights, Beterbiev wasn't throwing back as Bivol was throwing. So a lot of the time he would step into that range, walk into the shots, and just simply put his hands up and try and walk through those. And one of those shots would sneak through. That gives the time for Bivol then to readjust his feet, readjust his position in the ring, and readjust his position out to the side in comparison to Beterbiev. So he then he went from stability back to mobility and just kept jumping between there all the time. Mobile, stable, mobile, stable. Whereas in the first fight, I thought it was mobile, mobile, mobile, but so mobile that he wasn't able to set his feet and generate force quick enough to keep someone so strong off. 

I remember as I watched the first one thinking, he needs to throw back more. You could argue in general, if you'll get someone like Beterbiev, that you need to keep moving. Don't let him catch you, don't let him catch you. But the bottom line is, over 12 rounds, someone who's fit, relentless, very good at cutting off the ring, you can't run for 12 rounds. You need the punch, and you need to punch hard, and you need to punch occasionally in clusters, in combinations, punches in bunches, because there has to be something that he has to try and you have to walk him onto. And winning a shot on a jab on the back foot isn't the one. 

Now, in some ways, the Shiraz vs. Adamus fight was quite similar to that you had. The tall guy was moving, adjusting his feet, hitting him with the jab, trying to move, trying to move his feet. Adamus didn't cut the ring off nearly as well as Beterbiev did, but you could see that the idea was that he was trying to get close and get in with the combination punches. Now, for me, although that was a draw, and I don't believe it was, if I'm honest, but although that was a draw where Shiroz was doing well at the start, towards the end, he wasn't throwing enough to keep Adamus off, which let him get back into it for me. And I was a little bit in and out of that fight, if I'm honest. So I didn't sit down and watch it sort of religiously. 

But the difference between those fights was Shiraz versus Adamus was almost a bit like Bivol Beterbiev in the first fight. Whereas in the second fight, Bivol was able to throw a lot more back against Beterbiev, which is what I think. He won the fight. So he had more stability to throw shots with force, whereas I think Hamza Shiraz needed to sit down a little bit, throw a little bit more back, and then adjust his feet as opposed to the one or two shots, which to be fair, he did a little bit in the earlier rounds. A couple of nice little left hooks up the body and things like that. 

Anyway, we could break that down, that fight for millions of different learning science angles. We could break it down from lots of different tactical and technical standpoints. But just wanted to briefly bring up mobility versus stability. And how have you play with the tactics that that feed into stability and mobility, how we can be successful. So I think their camp made exactly the right changes, a bit more stability, bang, bang, bang, then adjust as opposed to just ping and run. That's where I think the success came from. And that's why I feel that he's now undisputed. And we kind of spotted that after the first fight. So massive congratulations to Bivol. Both of them great athletes, great advertisement for the sport. Got a real soft spot for Bivol as well. A bit like Usyk in a way, I suppose. They kind of got this really sort of nice sway about them. It's nice to have them as champions in major weight divisions in our sport. So there we go, mobility versus stability. And we had a really good conversation at DICE around it, and I think it was quite a rich conversation. And the boxers managed to buy in and give their own points of view as to why successful Bivol was. And then we put it into a session and we sort of looked about how we move on the back foot and how we get that stability, how we keep our base and how we drive shots in and then adjust afterwards. So kind of playing that graphic equalizer between the two. Mobility versus stability. 

Anyway, enough said. So that is my point of view on that fight. Anyway, guys, thanks very much. Toodaloo.