By Erik Schmidt: Undefeated light middleweight prospect Alexander Abraham (21-0-1, 15 KOs) stopped a badly over-matched Mihai Macovei (6-3, 4 KOs) in the 5th round of a scheduled 8-round bout on Tuesday night at the Salle la Soucoupe, Saint-Nazaire, in Loire-Atlantique, France. Abraham, 26, the younger brother of IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham, dropped Macovei twice in the 5th round, the second time a result of a huge left to the midsection which Macovei was unable to get up. The fight was immediately stopped when it was apparent that Macovei, 32, wasn’t going to be able to make it from the knockdown.
As in many of his other fights, Abraham looked rather pedestrian, fighting slowly without much interest and fouling often with rabbit punches and forearms to the head. His opponent, Macovei had only two years of professional boxing experience under his belt, and only eight fights. It astonishing that Abraham, a fighter with 22 fights under his belt and five years of professional boxing experience, would be matched against such a poor opponent. But, it was also very telling as Abraham has few of the skills of his older brother, and looks almost crude in comparison. The speed, combinations, power and ring intelligence are all missing from the younger Abraham, and it’s unlikely that at this stage of his career that he’ll ever attain them.
However, his management is doing him no favors by continually matching him so soft, for he’s not being put in the position to learn anything from his fights because he’s often able to take them out with his crude, clubbing shots, and not having to learn any real technique.
In the 1st round, Macovei, from Romania, came out fast throwing sharp combinations to the head of the flat-footed Abraham, catching him often as he waded in. Abraham did well in the second half of the round throwing a handful of jabs. However, Macovei surprisingly did enough to win the round. I say surprisingly, because Macovei looked horrible, throwing wild shots and running around the ring like a chicken with its head cut off. Abraham, however, looked even worse, a slow plodder looking for one big shot.
In the 2nd round, Abraham began opening up with more punches, missing many of them because loading up constantly. He looked amateurish in missing, with his punches coming in very wide. Near the near the end of the round while the referee was separating the two fighters after a clinch, Abraham unloaded with a hard shot to the back of Macovei’s head. Clearly, a case of hitting on the break, which should have promoted a warning to be given by the referee. However, none was coming though the referee did allow Macovei to go to the side of the ring and recover briefly from the shot.
It was strange though, because Abraham didn’t appear to need to throw a punch like that because Macovei was totally out-classed and wasn’t doing anything at the time in the round, other than trying to survive. Shortly after that, Abraham landed three consecutive rabbit punches to the back of Macovei’s head, with two being fired off in a row, then another a moment later after Macovei had complained to the referee about it. None of the apparent fouls were penalized by the referee, just like earlier in the round.
In rounds three and four, Abraham continued with his easy domination of Macovei, hitting him with wide hooks, forearms and straight lefts to the head. Most of the time, Abraham looked very sloppy, throwing punches from too far away and running at Macovei while failing his arms back and forth. In a way, it looked like a primitive imitation of Abraham’s older brother, as he often fights much in the same manner. However, Arthur Abraham’s accuracy, speed and power are several levels above Alexander, and it doesn’t look nearly as bad as Alexander.
By the 4th round, Macovei had swelling under his right eye and he was looking tired. He did, however, have a good round, landing some excellent combinations and jabs down the stretch. Abraham looked angry, in particular because the French crowd was cheering the underdog Macovei each time he’d land a good shot. This seemed to enrage Abraham, who spent the last part of the round fighting like a mad dog, missing often and attempting to land punches that were well beyond the reach of his arms. In between rounds, Macovei looked as if he wanted the fight to be stopped. He kept continuously pointing to his left glove, talking rapidly to both his trainer and the referee.
This carried over to the start of the 5th round. Finally, after much discussion Macovei came out for the 5th round, yet his body language showed that he really didn’t want to be there. Instead of attempting to engage Abraham like he had in the previous rounds, Macovei circled the ring continuously trying to stay away from Abraham. At one point, Macovei let his hands go and landed a nice four punch combination. However, Abraham immediately answered back with his own flurry of shots, causing Macovei to take a knee after taking an especially hard left hook to the head.
After getting up, Macovei ran almost continuously around the ring trying to avoid Abraham. Finally, after timing Macovei’s escape path, Abraham tagged him with a perfect left hook to the midsection, knocking him down. Macovei lay on the canvas for a long time, contorting his face in pain and ignoring the referee as he attempted to assist him. It was only under Abraham came over to see if he was okay that Macovei finally started to sit up, looking embarrassed.