Dirrell will outbox Abraham

By Scott Gilfoid: On March 6th, super middleweight contender Andre Dirrell (18-1, 13 KO’s) will be fighting unbeaten Arthur Abraham (31-0, 25 KO’s) in the second fight of Showtime’s Super Six tournament at the Agua Caliente Casino, in Rancho Mirage, California. As many people already know, the talented 26-year-old Dirrell lost his first fight of the Super Six tournament in a highly controversial 12 round split decision loss to World Boxing Council super middleweight champion Carl Froch on October 17th, in Froch’s home city of Nottingham, England.

Far and away, it was the worst decision I’ve ever witnessed in my life. I had Dirrell easily winning the fight 8 rounds to 3 with 1 round even. It was an impressive performance by Dirrell, almost but not quite as good as fellow American Andre Ward’s performance against Denmark’s Mikkel Kessler on November 21st.

Needless to say, Dirrell is going to be out looking to prove himself in front of world wide audiences when he sets foot in the ring against the unbeaten 29-year-old Abraham in California. Right now, the impressionable boxing public are practically gushing over the knockout performance from Abraham in his last fight against Jermain Taylor on October 17th of this year.

These fans are now under the mistaken impression that Abraham an unstoppable knockout artist and that he’s going to walk right through the remainder of the Super Six tournament contestants. It’s actually quite sad to see so many gullible people who use Abraham’s win over Taylor to form their impressions about him. I’ve been watching Abraham’s fights since 2004, and I already know that he isn’t a knockout artist and is quite flawed. If anything, Abraham appears to be deteriorating as he ages. He no longer throws combinations or fights hard for three minutes of every round and has become a fighter that is only capable of fighting hard for 20-30 seconds of every round.

This won’t do the job against the younger, more skilled Dirrell. Abraham is an effective fighter if you stand directly in front of him like Taylor made the mistake of doing in their fight in Germany. That wasn’t the brightest thing to do give his poor chin. Abraham can be problems for you if you stand right in front of him all night long. He can still be beaten if you outwork him, which isn’t hard to do, and try to avoid his constant elbows that he tends to throw over and over again. The elbows are like a mini-bat for Abraham. He used it to stun Taylor with in the 9th round of their fight.

I’m sure Abraham didn’t connect with the elbow on purpose, but connect he did. And Abraham does throw a lot of elbows, make no mistake about that. Where Abraham will have problems with Dirrell is in the speed department. Abraham isn’t all that quick anymore now that he’s pushing 30. He never was all that fast to begin with but the years haven’t been kind to Arthur, and he’s starting to show his age in the ring.

He’s going to have problems catching up to Dirrell and landing anything at all. Abraham has rather poor punching technique. He likes to throw the sloppiest of round house rights and lefts while charging forward. It looks nothing like a professional fighter when Abraham does this. I suppose he can get away with this because his opponents are often not used to seeing a fighter fight in such an unorthodox, dare I say amateurish, style.

I just don’t see that style working against a skilled fighter like Dirrell. Abraham isn’t an inside mugger, and won’t be able to try and mug Dirrell in close the way that Froch attempted to do in their fights. Although I’m sure Abraham will have studied the Froch-Dirrell fight and will be looking to foul Dirrell and try to get him off his game. The problem is Dirrell will have learned from the Froch fight to stay calm when being fouled repeatedly, and plus this fight will be taking place in the U.S.

If Abraham resorts to holding and hitting, throwing elbows, as well as rabbit punches all night long, it will very likely cost him points, causing him to lose the fight in that manner. No, if Abraham wants to win the fight against Dirrell, he’ll have to beat him fair and square and won’t be able to sink the levels of fouling to try to make up for his lack of talent in the ring. If this was a wrestling or a MMA fight, I’m sure that Abraham would beat Dirrell. But it’s not, so Dirrell will likely win by a lopsided 12 round decision.

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