On Saturday night in Moscow, WBC, IBF light heavyweight world champion Artur Beterbiev (16-0, 16 KOs) broke down and stopped Adam Deines (19-2-1, 10 KOs) in the tenth round.

For Beterviev, it was his first bout since October 2019, when he stopped Oleksandr Gvozdyk to unify the WBC, IBF light heavyweight belts.

While Beterbiev controlled the fight, it was not his finest performance. 

Deines connected more than he should have with counter punches and was able to make the dangerous puncher miss often enough.

The end finally came during the tenth, when Deines went down for a second time and the fight was stopped when he got to his feet in bad condition.

There was no sugarcoating from Beterbiev, who felt his performance was lacking.

"A lot of things didn't work out as they should have [in the fight]. Maybe the time zone, maybe something else. My trainer said that I was asleep until the ninth round. And the opponent was strong," Beterbiev said.

Head trainer, Marc Ramsey, downplayed the criticism and praised his boxer's performance.

"Deines put up some serious resistance," said Ramsey. "Artur was not going to immediately fly into attack mode, the task was to feel the opponent out and move around the ring. He had a great fight, he did everything that we had planned."

After the fight, the handlers for Deines indicated that the German boxer was unhappy with the readiness of his corner to throw in the towel. At the moment the contest waved off in the tenth, the trainer for Deines was trying to wave off the fight.

Deines felt the matchup should have been allowed to continue.

"He believes that he could have still continued in the fight, but the coach was throwing in the towel," said the boxer's representative.