Dirrell vs. Abraham to take place in Detroit

By Scott Gilfoid: The March 27th Super Six tournament bout between contestants Andre Dirrell (18-1, 13 KO’s) and Arthur Abraham (31-0, 25 KO’s) will take place in Detroit, Michigan, instead of California, according to news from the Grand Rapids Press. The bout was supposed to be taking place at the Agua Caliente Casino, in Rancho Mirage, California. But now it will either take place at the Cobo Arena or Joe Louis Arena. This actually works out even better for Dirrell, 26, because he comes from Flint, Michigan. He can obviously expect a huge sellout crowd in Detroit where his fans from all over the state will be flocking to the area to see Dirrell fight Abraham.

If the fight had taken place in California, it would have made it much tougher for Dirrell’s fans because it would mean that they would have to fly all the way across the United States to see him fight Abraham. Dirrell is a popular fighter all throughout the U.S., but he’s still a growing fighter in American and will likely be a huge super star by the time the Super Six tournament is over with.

By having the fight take place in Detroit, it should help the local economy by bringing in outside fans that will pour money into the area and help out the local business. Michigan as a whole has been reeling the past couple of years with stagnant job growth. This fight at least will help some people for the short term.
Abraham defeated former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Jermain Taylor by a 12th round knockout on October 17th.

Taylor fought a bad a fight by making the mistake of standing directly in front of Abraham, making it easy for the slower fighter to connect with his big shots. I had the fight very close going into the 12th round and felt that the winner of that round would win the fight. Abraham connected with a big right hand and flattened Taylor.

It was a badly telegraphed punch, but Taylor looked too tired to react to the shot coming and took it straight to the jaw and went down like a ton of bricks. Abraham won’t likely have much of any chance of landing a similar type punch against Dirrell on March 27th, because Dirrell, who they call “The Matrix” for his ability to dip away from punches, will be making Abraham miss all night long. Even when Abraham is fighting an opponent that stands directly in front of him, he still misses quite frequently.

However, in facing a defensive wizard like Dirrell, Abraham is going to be lucky if he can connect with more than a small handful of punches in every round. Dirrell, for his part, will be landing straight left hands all night long down the pipe and blazing fast combinations. Dirrell has already spotted a couple of weaknesses in Abraham’s game, noticing that the German based fighter leaves his midsection exposed when he covers up in his typical clamshell defense.

Abraham’s midsection will be an inviting target for Dirrell’s sizzling punches. Also, Abraham showed a weakness of dropping his hands down by his sides when he would come out of his clamshell defense to get ready to throw punches. Abraham does this virtually every time he comes out of his defensive posture, and is wide open for follow up punches.

Dirrell says he plans on renewing his attack immediately after opening up with a salvo of punches. By doing this, he’ll likely catch Abraham as he emerges from his turtle shell defense. Abraham also seems to be a sucker for uppercuts. Taylor landed some nice ones during his fight with Abraham in October.

The problem for Taylor is that he made the mistake of throwing them from too far out and didn’t get as much on the shots as he could have. The southpaw Dirrell has one of the best uppercuts in the super middleweight division, and if Abraham stands in close to Dirrell, he’s going to get decapitated by one of Andre’s big uppercuts to the head.

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