Abraham vs. Miranda: Will Edison Get His Revenge?

By Boxing News - 05/12/2008 - Comments

miranda6464.jpgBy Erik Schmidt: Edison Miranda (30-2, 26 KOs) hopes to get a fair decision this time out when he takes on unbeaten middleweight Arthur Abraham (26-0, 21 KOs) in their revenge match in June 21st at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Hollywood, Florida. Miranda, 27, was given what many people consider a poor decision when he lost to Abraham by a controversial 12-round unanimous decision in September 2006. Miranda, who dominated most of the rounds, breaking Abraham’s jaw in the fourth round and appearing to do more than enough to get the win over Abraham.

However, Miranda was penalized a total of five points in the fight, ranging from low blows to the use of his head. There’s no question that Abraham was guilty of using his head on one occasion but as far as the low blows go, those were punches on the border of Abraham’s beltline and it seemed way out of line to penalize Miranda for such questionable shots. Worse, however, was that the fight was stopped in the fourth round to have Abraham’s jaw looked at by a ring side doctor. Abraham ended up being allowed to continue fighting but he mostly was limited to brief flurries in every round, missing the vast majority of his punches every time. Abraham only landed a small handful of punches in each round following the fifth round, while taking tremendous punishment from Miranda, who continuously landed big bombs with both hands.

The fight should clearly have been stopped due to the broken jaw of Abraham, if not for the fight’s sake than for the health of Abraham for he risked his life by continuing to fight with his broken jaw, which kept him from closing his mouth completely. Most people can’t forget the ugly sight of Abraham trying to fight while his mouth was wide open, blood pouring out constantly all over the place, and him not being able to fight effectively. Indeed, Abraham looked the worst I’d ever seen him fight. He threw punches that mostly missed, threw his own share of illegal blows – low blows, forearms, punches to the back – and yet wasn’t penalized by the referee.

During the later rounds, Abraham looked completely exhausted and hurt, constantly turning his back on Miranda and walking away from him to try and get through the rounds without having to fight as much. He wasn’t trying to win, it seemed, just trying to survive in there with Miranda. After the 5th round, I only gave Abraham one legitimate round that he won, with all of the rest coming due to his frequent awards of points due to penalization of Miranda. In the end, it wasn’t a case of Abraham actively winning the fight, but rather him being given the decision by virtue all the countless penalizations of Miranda.

I could understand it if they clearly flagrant but in this case, aside from the head butt by Miranda in the 5th, the low blows he threw were clearly borderline and didn’t warrant this kind of actions on the part of the referee. I’ve never even heard of a fighter being penalized that many times in a bout without being disqualified. It seems to me that’s what the referee should have done instead, if he really wanted to hurt Miranda. At least that way it would have saved Abraham from needless punishment from the hands of Miranda.

This time out, the fight is going to be fought in the United States, no doubt because of the huge controversy with their first fight’s fiasco in Germany. There shouldn’t be any question this time about questionable fouls or calls, because I’m guessing that the referee working the bout won’t be crazy enough to call stuff unless it’s blatantly flagrant. I’ve seen Miranda fight five times since his bout with Abraham and not once have I seen him doing any kind of intentional fouling nor have I seen him throw low blows. I have seen him throw an occasional belt line blow, just like in his fight with Abraham, but none of the referees have saw fit to penalize Miranda because they could see with their eyes that he wasn’t’ throwing low. It will be interesting to see how well Abraham does without the penalizations working for him.

Who knows? Maybe he’ll fight better. He was fighting under the worse possible circumstances last time they fought, having to fight seven rounds with a broken jaw. I can’t imagine too many fighters having the courage to fight through pain for such an extended amount of time in a bout. Abraham ended up swallowing a lot of blood due to his broken jaw and that had to have been a problem for him as well. Perhaps will see Abraham end up knocking Miranda out like Kelly Pavlik did in 2007.