Abraham vs. Elcock On Saturday

Continuing with his tradition of fighting almost exclusively softer European opposition, undefeated International Boxing Federation middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (24-0, 19 KOs) goes up against British challenger Wayne Elcock (18-2, 8 KOs) on Saturday night at the St. Jakob Halle, in Basel, Switzerland. Since winning the vacant IBF middleweight title in December 2005 with a 5th round KO over Kingsley Ikeke, Abraham, 27, has defended against Shannan Taylor, Kofi Jantuah, Edison Miranda, Sebastien Demers and most recently to Sebastien Demers.

Aside from Miranda, who appeared to have beaten Abraham in an extremely controversial bout in August 2006, the other fighters perhaps shouldn’t even be in the top 10. Although that’s not Abraham’s fault, since his job is to fight the top challengers in the division, and unfortunately the IBF is littered with marginal fighters. If the top 15, only two of them - Winky Wright and Fulgencio Zuniga - are what I consider quality. I’d pick both to beat Abraham easily, in fact, if given the chance.

In the latest boxing news, Abraham has maintained that he’s interested in fighting the winner of Kelly Pavlik vs. Jermain Taylor. It’s not likely that either of them would waste time, however, facing Abraham because of his lack of familiarity to most Americans. Of the the Americans that know of Abraham, most of them are only aware of him because of his bout with Miranda, and don’t have a particularly positive opinion of him, nor do they care much for his fellow countryman, Felix Sturm, the World Boxing Association middleweight champion, who likewise mainly fights softer European opposition.

As for Elcock, 33, he’s mostly an average fighter, who until narrowly defeating a shot Howard Eastman in September 2005, was not even thought of by most boxing fans. Even now, Elock isn’t ranked in the top 15 in the middleweight division and appears to have been selected due to his win over Eastman, and because he’s a safe opponent for Abraham. He’ll likely lose, of course, but that’s why he was selected in the first place.