In his latest column, Russ Anber reflects on a trip to Moscow for Artur Beterbiev’s return to the ring and life 12 months after the start of the pandemic…
I’m writing this column in Istanbul airport as I wait to board a connecting flight back to Montreal after working Artur Beterbiev’s corner Saturday night at the Khodynka Ice Palace in Moscow as he secured a tenth-round stoppage win against Adam Deines.
This was the first fight I’ve worked since December when Callum Smith faced Canelo Alvarez and being back at a big international fight again and being able to soak up the atmosphere of a world title showdown really made me realise how much I’ve been missing regularly travelling the world to work corners since the beginning of the pandemic 12 months ago.
In 2019 I worked countless fights but last year the pandemic decimated the schedule to such an extent that I only worked four or five events.
Boy, I’ve missed it. I didn’t realise quite how much I’ve missed it until these last few days.
It’s a long trip over from Canada to Russia – nine and a half hours flight to Istanbul and then another three hours to Moscow. While I was travelling over I cast my mind back to almost exactly a year ago when I had to leave New York after Mick Conlan’s planned fight at MSG against Belmar Preciado was one of the early sporting casualties of the pandemic.
What a year it’s been. Being in Moscow these last few days really provided me with a flashback to what life used to be like! There was no bubble and no restrictions! I had to have a test before I flew out to Russia but once that came back negative I was able to just walk in and walk around like a normal citizen in the pre-pandemic age.
At times my brain felt like it was short circuiting a little because to look around the city it was like Covid-19 doesn’t exist and never existed in Moscow! Everyone was walking around like it was life and business as usual! No masks, no nothing!
There I was wearing my mask, freaking out, worried about staying safe and people were sat in restaurants eating together, the 24 hour Legend Billiard Club was open and it seemed like life was back to normal.
If you watched the fight you will have seen how many people piled in the ring at the end! It was like some kind of crazy world record attempt to see how many human beings you could fit in a boxing ring before it collapsed! I was freaking out on the apron and there were just piles of people pouring in from all angles! It was crazy.
Having said all of that, it was nice to remember and get a taste of what normal life is like. I haven’t been in a pool hall in forever and the owner at Legends in Moscow gave me a private room to play in which was great. It was nice to be able to go out and have a meal too, and not being in a bubble felt like a real novelty.
However, the contrast between how everything is being handled in Moscow compared to Canada and other countries really bothered me. To be frank, there doesn’t seem to be much logic at work when you compare how different countries have dealt with the pandemic.
After being able to do pretty much as I pleased in Moscow when I now go home to Canada, I will have to take a test on arriving and then be holed up in a government hotel for up to three days while I wait for the test result to come back. Even if it comes back negative I’ll then have to see out eleven days in quarantine at home.
I don’t get it. I want to do my bit and I feel like I have done my bit – last summer from August until the end of December I spent a combined total of two months in quarantine at home for trips I’d made abroad.
I’m not a scientist or a politician, so how the hell am I meant to know what the right approach to this is? But it really doesn’t make sense that there have been so many conflicting and contrasting ways of handling this crisis. How come there isn’t a collective agreement globally about how to deal with it? The massive extremes in how different countries have approached the situation has really been bugging me.
Anyway, that’s enough about the goddamned pandemic. What about the fight? Well, I’m sure Beterbiev was delighted to be finally back in the ring after not fighting since that great win against Gvozdyk back in in 2019.
He trained in Russia for seven weeks ahead of the fight with Marc Ramsay down in the mountains in the south of Russia. Marc said the facilities down there were absolutely outstanding.
I flew in the Monday before the fight and it was a pretty hectic week. Press conferences, public work-outs, interviews and so on – all that stuff was flying at us.
Amid all of that I think Artur felt a lot of pressure. It was the first time he’s fought as a professional in his home country, plus he had the pressure of being the unified champion of the world and not having fought since before the pandemic. All his supporters, particularly those from the Chechen community, were all at ringside so the pressure was on to perform and once he got into his rhythm he did.
He dropped Deines in the first round and nothing really came of that for a while, but a few rounds later he cracked him with a massive left hook that spun Deines’ head around like in The Exorcist. Bam! Most people would have been knocked out by that shot but the kid hardly moved! At that point I said: ‘oh shit we’re in a fight here! This is going to be hard work!’
And Deines showed a lot of heart. He hung in there, he tried the best that he could but in the end it was inevitable that Artur would catch up with him. It was a case of a Ferrari in Beterbiev coming up against – oh I dunno – maybe an Audi in Deines! And an Audi is a good car but it ain’t a Ferrari you know?
There are levels in boxing and Beterbiev showed the level he is at with the finish to the fight. He’s a great finisher, of course, and a ferocious puncher. Most of all though, his power and intensity and the pressure he puts on are hard work for anybody who gets in the ring with him to handle. He simply does not let up. He has that Eastern bloc mentality where he will try and break you and he will just keep going and keep doing that until he gets you out of there.
He’s a handful for anyone and – in my opinion- the best light heavyweight in the world right now.
Russ Anber was talking to Luke G. Williams.
