By Dan Ambrose: Undefeated International Boxing Federation middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (25-0, 20 KOs) against challenger Elvin Ayala (18-2-1, 8 KOs) on March 29th at the Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, in Germany. In selecting Ayala, ranked #15th in the IBF, as his next opponent, it appears that Abraham is continuing with his tradition of fighting lesser quality opposition at the expense of more talented fighters. Incredibly, this will be the 27 year-old Abraham’s seventh title defense of his IBF title since winning it in December 2005 with a 5th round TKO of Kingsley Ikeke.
Since then, however, Abraham has worked it out so that he’s only faced one fighter that I consider a quality opponent – Edison Miranda – whom Abraham beat by a very controversial 12-round unanimous decision in September 2006. Miranda, who badly punished Abraham, breaking his jaw in two places, was penalized an incredible five points for low blows and a headbutt. The low blows were shown to be on the belt line of Abraham’s trunks. Since that time, Miranda hasn’t been given a rematch, which would seem like a logical thing considering the controversy of the fight.
Aside from that, Abraham has taken on fighters like Sebastien Demers, Khoren Gevor and most recently with Wayne Elcock. Of the bunch, I only consider Elcock as a worthy challenger for Abraham, and he gave him what turned out to be a much tougher than expected fight until ultimately being stopped in the 5th round of the fight. However, as good as Elcock was in the fight, he wasn’t ranked high enough for him to even be in the same ring as Abraham in my view. And that’s the whole problem with Abraham; Instead of facing tough fighters like Winky Wright, Fulgencio Zuniga or Andy Lee, we see fighters against Shannon Taylor, Demers, Elcock and Gevor.
With that kind of opposition being force fed to Abraham, it’s no wonder that he’s held onto the title this long, because none of them are what I consider to be top 10 fighters. However, there is a bit of bright lining to this poor story, in that Abraham is being considered by WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik for a potential unification bout in the Fall. If that comes to pass, then we’d finally get to see Abraham in against a top opponent. It would be high time for it, because it would only be the second good fight from him in two years. I don’t, however, see Abraham winning the fight, as he isn’t in the same class as Pavlik, and would most definitely get knocked out in the first few rounds of the fight.
As for Ayala, he’s mostly known for having fought former television star from The Contender reality TV program Sergio Mora to a 10-round draw on October 16th. It was a good win for Ayala, 27, showing that he can fight evenly with fringe contenders like Mora, but it’s not what I consider a world class opponent for Abraham. Abraham will likely have little problems beating Ayala, but he’ll have to work to earn the decision, because Ayala will be working hard trying to upset Abraham.
I’m not precisely sure why, but both Abraham and the WBA middleweight champion Felix Sturm, seem to get by without having to face really tough opponents. I can’t see how or why they do it, because it seems as if they’re both stunting their careers by facing mostly limited opposition in Germany. Of course, they’re paid well to fight mediocre opponents, but they’d obviously get paid much better if they were to consistently take on the very top of the division instead of the easy fights each time out.