Total punches landed: 243-75 in favor of Bivol. Power punches: 146-65 and jabs: 97-10.
Bivol was too fast.
Division getting very interesting....Well, we know more about Bivol now and his power can carry into the championship rounds. So can Beterbiev's.
Bivol is a fucking beast he made the highly skilled and criminally underrated Barrera look like shit. All he had to defend himself were headbutts and low blows. Hurt him a bunch of times and stopped him cold. Bivol did better than Ward did against a more experienced version of Barrera.
Kid can fight. If Ward is smart he'll try to fight him next week before Bivol has a chance to improve and reach his prime in a year or two.
In the same way that Kelly Pavlik did a better job against Edison Miranda. Barrera was shut out by a very rusty version of Ward. There was no reason for people to be assuming Barrera was especially underrated. Bivol beat the shit out of him and looked great, but we shouldn't draw too much from the fact that he did the job better than Ward did (it's the same reason why people thought Chavez was a level above Whitaker).
We should assume that Bivol is a problem for most of the division, though. Personally, I still see Kovalev as the man to beat in the division, but Bivol has a real chance there.
Hes never been special. He hits like a truck and can box a little bit.Kovalev didn't look so special tonight. he has't look special in 4 of his last 5.