Artur Beterbiev will likely be ordered to combat Callum Smith subsequent, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman beforehand confirmed.
The WBC, IBF and WBO light-heavyweight world champion retained his belts with a surprising stoppage win over Anthony Yarde on Saturday evening in London.
Getty
The brutal battle started started with an aggressive begin from Beterbiev as he pursued Yarde across the ring.
Nonetheless, the challenger was intelligent along with his counters and matched the champion.
Beterbiev damage Yarde in spherical 4, however the Brit weathered the storm earlier than battling again to harm the Russian-Canadian in a sensational fifth spherical.
Each males minimize one another within the following rounds and continued to alternate heavy artillery.
Finally although, Beterbiev made the distinction with a giant shot in spherical eight which staggered Yarde and noticed him knocked down.
He beat the rely and tried to combat on, however was on the tip of one other assault, so his coach jumped up onto the ring apron to cease the combat.
On the WBC conference in November, the subject of Beterbiev arose and was clarified by the WBC president.
“I can assure the WBC board reviewed on Sunday – Callum Smith is the obligatory,” Sulaiman stated to a Matchroom rep.
“He’s allowed to do an interim combat as a result of Beterbiev is gonna do the WBO obligatory. The winner should combat Callum Smith.
“Smith is permitted to do a combat. Nonetheless, if he loses that combat, he’ll lose his place as obligatory challenger.”
