Artur Beterbiev defends three belts against Anthony Yarde

There is no doubt this is the biggest fight of the 31-year-old Yarde’s career, since he made his pro debut on 5 September 2015, and has compiled a record of 23-2; 22.

Beterbiev, 38, has a fearsome record, having won all his 18 fights inside the distance in a ten-year career and is the only the current world champion with a 100 per cent knockout ratio.

He won the IBF belt against Enrico Koellig and made successful defences against Cullum Johnson (ko 4) and Radivoje Kalajdzic (ko 5), before adding the WBC belt to his collection with a tenth-round stoppage win over Oleksandr Gvozdyk (tko 10).

In his most recent fight on 2 June last year, he became a triple world champion when he stopped WBO light heavyweight champion Joe Smith Jr in the second round.

Yarde, who lives in London, came close to winning in his first crack at a world title when in August 2019 he lost every round against the Sergey Kovalev until the eighth round, when he had the Russian in trouble and was one punch away from beating the unified light-heavyweight world champion.

He had Kovalev in big trouble, but the Russian managed to survive the round and then stopped Yarde in the 11th round.

In his most recent contest in November last year, he stopped Stefani Koykov in the third round.

This is a step up in class for the younger Yarde but most of the betting sites have the veteran Berterbiev as a heavy odds-on favourite.