At the moment, the prevailing sentiment among boxing fans is that the former WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol was robbed of his win Saturday night at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, against the new undisputed light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev. However, a recently surfaced photo of the 33-year-old from after the fight is shedding new light on what truly transpired.

The thing is, Dmitry Bivol started the fight on his front foot, putting pressure on Beterbiev. However, the tides of war changed in the later rounds, and it kept swaying back and forth throughout the fight, leading to a controversial majority decision win for Beterbiev. Meanwhile, His Excellency Turki Alalshikh shared a picture after the fight’s conclusion with Beterbiev and Bivol on social media. 

What’s in the picture? 

You see, the picture showed Beterbiev and Bivol standing on either side of the Saudi Royal, who was posing while holding up a painted portrait of the boxers. However, as DAZN Boxing pointed out when sharing the picture on X, “Check Bivol’s left hand 👀😳,” many took notice of the previously unknown injury.

This, of course, was caused by the many repeated blows from Artur Beterbiev on Bivol’s guard during the fight. Since Bivol fights out of the orthodox stance, the theory made a lot of sense. Not to forget, the previously unbeaten Russian himself had claimed Beterbiev’s punches were extremely hard, and he felt them through his hand and onto his face, which even left his left eye swollen.

It’s also worth noting that Artur Beterbiev had maintained a 100 percent knockout ratio prior to the fight, which should give you an idea of the kind of power he packs behind those punches. Regardless, this picture was enough for fans to go hog wild in the comment section of the post. 

Fan makes a startling realization about Dmitry Bivol

Since the fight ended, it has become one of the most talked about subjects on boxing social media. Naturally, this picture quickly sparked conversations as well. One user highlighted Bivol’s own words from after the bout. “He actually said that post fight. That Artur punches were so powerful, he could feel it on his face even though he had his guard up😳,” wrote the user. However, it’s also worth noting that despite praising Beterbiev’s power, Bivol claimed he could handle it. 

Another user realized why Bivol had significantly slowed down in the later rounds of the fight. “Now we see why he wasn’t throwing towards the end of the [f]ight… he was injured,” commented the user. Bivol was even moving around the ring a lot to avoid getting caught, so it could also have added to his fatigue. 

Someone else felt Beterbiev focusing on Bivol’s hands didn’t matter much in the context of scoring points. “Punching his hand isn’t a scoring punch,” the user claimed. While punches to Bivol’s guard may not have earned Beterbiev any points, it did weaken Bivol’s defense over time. 

The next user was worried about Bivol after seeing the picture. He asked, “Dam is it broken????” There are no reports of fracture and Bivol has since appeared in interviews, where he looks fine. 

Meanwhile, this user refused to acknowledge that Bivol’s arm was swollen. “Nothing wrong with his hand,” the user claimed. However, the picture clearly shows Bivol’s lead arm is visibly bigger than the other.

That being said, does a swollen arm change the performance Dmitry Bivol put on Saturday night? Absolutely not! All that the picture proves is that Artur Beterbiev was relentlessly trying to break Bivol’s guard. What do you think about Bivol’s left arm?