Rivalries in boxing are a lot like relationships, meaning no two are ever the same and not a single one is perfect. 

Some will start with a first date so full of potential it must be followed immediately with a second for both parties to know exactly where they stand. Others, meanwhile, have a longer and less certain courting period and function more as a drawn-out love affair, with all the ups and downs typically associated with one. 

If, as is the case with Anthony Yarde and Lyndon Arthur, a rivalry is stretched over the course of five years, you can be sure that a lot has gone on between the pair and that other partners have at some stage been involved. You can also be sure that they are reuniting at the point at which they have realised either that the grass isn’t always greener or that they were never at their best when in each other’s company. 

In 2020, when they first met, Yarde happened to be mourning the deaths of various family members due to Covid-19 and his mind was naturally elsewhere. He was thinking not of Arthur, the opponent in front of him, but of all he had lost; fighting just to distract himself and feel something. As a result, he would suffer further loss on the night, with Arthur a shock winner via 12-round decision. 

One year later, having now come to terms with his losses, Yarde rematched Arthur and was a completely different proposition. This time, rather than passively following Arthur around the ring and allowing the technician to control him with his jab, Yarde set about him in an effort to take back the one loss he could actually take back. In just four rounds, he had done it, too, stopping Arthur with a barrage of shots to level the score in the most empathic way possible. 

So emphatic was Yarde’s performance, in fact, most assumed the rivalry between Yarde and Arthur was finished that night in London. After all, though it was now one win apiece, the nature of Yarde’s rematch victory surely superseded the relatively close decision which went Arthur’s way in fight one. 

“I thought it was put to bed,” Yarde told BoxingScene. “I didn’t think I’d ever fight him again, to be honest. After we fought the second time, I went on to fight for the unified title against [Artur] Beterbiev and he fought [Dmitry] Bivol. I then heard rumours that he might retire, so I wasn’t really thinking we would ever fight again. 

“But that’s the thing about boxing. You look at my situation and you’ll see that the fights I wanted didn’t materialise and that I wasted a lot of time trying to make them. That caused me some inactivity and it caused me to slow down really. Now I’m just happy to be getting back in the ring and fighting on a massive occasion like this. Finally, I’ve got a live opponent.”

While it would be a stretch to say that Yarde and Arthur have found each other exactly when they need each other, it is true to say that their trilogy fight, set for Saturday (April 26) at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, is an example of two fighters going over old ground in an attempt to then move forward. It is, in many ways, a reset. It is a chance to not only settle the rivalry once and for all, but it also provides some renewed relevance to a couple of light-heavyweights whose careers are seemingly always in danger of drifting, being forgotten. 

Yarde, in particular, has had the strangest of careers, with heroic performances, albeit losing ones, against the likes of Beterbiev and Sergey Kovalev interspersed with routine wins against nonentities. In fact, when he isn’t boxing fearsome Russians as the underdog, it is only in fights against Lyndon Arthur that Yarde, now 33, has managed to capture the imagination of the British public. Everything else, alas, has been somewhat anticlimactic for Yarde, his career awash with one too many tune-up fights and one too many knockouts followed by a shrug. 

“It's been very frustrating,” he admitted. “The fight I had against Beterbiev [in 2023] won ‘Fight of the Year’ and I was ready to go again and build on the momentum from it. We tried to get the rematch but he went on to do bigger things and fight Bivol. 

“For me, it was hard, because I still wanted to be involved in big fights. We tried to make certain fights happen – like against [Joshua] Buatsi, and Callum Smith, and some other names – but they didn’t come to fruition. I was also in promotional disputes around the same time. There were a lot of ups and downs and a lot of going round in circles. But it all worked itself out in the end. I just stayed in the gym and kept getting better. 

“After the Beterbiev fight I had a nice break and it was probably the best I have looked in the return fight [against Jorge Silva]. Then I had the dispute thing, the layoff, and I fought again but didn’t feel myself. That’s why I’m excited to get out again and be part of a big occasion. That’s when I feel I really thrive.”

He calls the third fight with Arthur an example of him going “full circle” and believes it will act as a “building block” for his career and nothing more. It is not a fight anybody was hankering to see, he concedes, yet it is probably the fight that makes the most sense for Yarde at this crucial stage in his 29-fight career. 

“I feel like it’s one of those fights where we both know each other and there’s a bit of bad blood there,” he said. “We’re both from England and we both speak English. So there will be a bit of excitement in the build-up as well. 

“The second fight was a lot more electrifying – there was a crowd there, etcetera. But this one will be even bigger than that.”

Of course, given the “electrifying” nature of fight two, and especially Yarde’s performance, it won’t be easy for the Londoner to improve on it come Saturday night. A decision win, that can be bettered with a stoppage win, while a late stoppage win, that can be bettered by an early stoppage win. A stoppage in round four, however, leaves little room for improvement and makes Yarde fighting Arthur for a third time an even riskier option to take. 

“Unless I go out there and knock him out in the first round – or the second or third – and I look better, there’s always going to be that pressure,” Yarde acknowledged. “But my mentality is to never put pressure on myself. Even when I’m in big fights, I never put pressure on myself. It’s boxing. We don’t know what’s going to happen until it happens. I just go out there and enjoy myself. I embrace the fact I made this decision in my life and enjoy the whole experience.”

Usually when it comes to rematches you can use the previous fight as a guide and an indication of what to expect. Here, though, it is a little more difficult. After all, in fight one Yarde was present in body only, while in fight two Arthur could argue that he was caught cold, or simply caught out by something, or someone, he had not been expecting. Neither, in other words, have ever been at their best on the same night, which helps give fight three a little bit of mystery and intrigue it would otherwise lack.  

“I think he expected it,” Yarde, 26-3 (24), said of Arthur in their 2021 rematch. “I just think he couldn’t handle it. He knew what was coming, but when it did come, he had no answer for it. I told him what I was coming with and his trainer [Pat Barrett] even told everybody what I was going to be coming with. His trainer told me they knew how I was going to come for that rematch. I just hope that they know I will be bringing even more to this third fight. I’m going to be more aggressive, better, sharper. Hopefully he’s better as well. 

“I’m probably the best [version of himself] out of the three. Third time’s a charm, they say, and of the three fights we have had, I feel like I am in the best place mentally for this one.”

Often in relationships familiarity breeds contempt, yet in boxing it tends to go the other way. In boxing, a familiarity between two boxers builds only respect. Sometimes it is grudging, and sometimes it is hard to express, but it is always there, somewhere. 

“In his career he has always been a good fighter,” Yarde said of Arthur. “He has only lost to me and Bivol and has only been stopped once – by me. He’s not someone I can overlook. He’s got some good wins on his record as well. 

“I know that Lyndon Arthur is not a gatekeeper. He is a guy who will want his revenge. Even after I beat him in our rematch, the first thing he said to me was, ‘I want my belts back. I want to fight again.’ He will be seeing this as a massive opportunity. 

“Knowing that, plus the fact there’s a bit of bad blood there, makes this a very exciting fight for me.”

Because we have seen them share a ring before, it doesn’t take much creativity and imagination to picture both Yarde and Arthur triumphing on Saturday. If you like Arthur, you will point to his mastery of the left jab and how he used this punch so expertly to offset Yarde in fight one. If, on the other hand, you are more partial to the work of Yarde, you will steer doubters in the direction of his work in the rematch, which he won by essentially overpowering Arthur and throwing punches in combination; something he neglected the first time around. Ask Yarde, of course, and he can see only one way fight three unfolds. 

“I think the result will go the same way [as the rematch], definitely,” he said. “I don’t ever go into a boxing ring expecting anything in terms of the opponent fighting a certain way, or the fight playing out a certain way. But he’s known as a fighter who fights on the back foot, jabs a lot, and clinches a lot. He might come with something different this time. Who knows? I’m just seeing it as a fresh fight. We know each other well enough, as two people going into a ring and fighting, but you still can’t assume anything. I just genuinely feel that he can’t handle the things I bring to the table. That’s my mentality for this fight. I know I’m better now than I was when we fought three years ago.”

It is, in truth, the only way a relationship like theirs can work and make sense. They must, on the night, both be better than they have been in the past and they must show that they have learned their lessons and that they have improved. Only then can we think about adding Yarde vs. Arthur to the many memorable and meaningful trilogies we have seen in British boxing over the years. Only then can one of the two finally make peace with everything that has happened between them and maturely move on to bigger and better things.