Super Six: Abraham Will Lose to Taylor

By Jason Kim: Former International boxing Federation middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (30-0, 24 KO’s) will be going into this Saturday night’s Super Six bout against Jermain Taylor still undefeated and facing probably the toughest opponent of his career. At 29, it’s hard to believe that Abraham has had so few opponents during his career and his time holding down the IBF title.

On October 17th, Abraham won’t be facing the usual fodder that he’s been served up with while holding down the IBF title in a weakened middleweight division. Abraham will be facing 31-year-old Jermain Taylor, who is arguably light years better than anyone that Abraham has faced as of yet. Abraham vacated his middleweight title recently because he had problems making the weight.

During the time that he held the title, perhaps the best fighter Abraham faced was Edison Miranda. Abraham had terrible time beating Miranda in 2006, and ended up winning the fight by a 12 round decision after Miranda was docked an incredible five points for fouls ranging from head butts to low blows.

For those boxing fans that saw the fight, it was pretty clear that Abraham didn’t beat Miranda in that fight. Miranda beat himself with the fouls. However, if you take those fouls out of the equation, Abraham probably should have lost by at least four rounds, maybe more.

Abraham was able to stop a badly weight drained Miranda in their rematch, but the win didn’t prove much because Miranda had to take off a ton of weight in the last couple of weeks before the fight and probably was too weight drained to fight effectively.

In looking at some of Abraham’s recent bouts, the thing that jumps out at you is his work rate. Abraham typically has not been a busy fighter and got wins based on an anemic work rate. In many cases, Abraham didn’t need to throw a lot of punches because his opponents were so badly over-matched that they folded rather quickly and quietly.

Jermain Taylor won’t go away quietly like Abraham’s recent opponents and if Abraham wants to beat him, he’s going to have to be a lot different fighter than he’s been in the past few years. That version of Abraham will lose to Taylor and lose badly.

Abraham will have to throw two to three times more punches than he’s been throwing if he wants to beat Taylor. In other words, throwing from 20-30 punches per round won’t get the job done against Taylor. Abraham is going to have to let his hands go and hope for the best. If he tires out by the 3rd round, so be it.

Supposedly, Abraham is planning on changing his fighting style for his bout with Taylor this Saturday. I can’t for the life of me think of what Abraham could do any different than what he’s been doing in his fights. I’m hoping that Abraham’s new strategy involves him throwing more punches because short of that, he’s going to lose to Taylor.

If Abraham tries to load up with every shot he throws, it still won’t work unless he throws a lot of combinations. He’s got to be busy and not be afraid to wear himself out. I suspect Abraham won’t be any different than he has been and won’t throw enough punches to get the win.

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