Abraham looking scared of Dirrell

By Boxing News - 03/27/2010 - Comments

Image: Abraham looking scared of DirrellPhoto: Tom Casino/showtime – By Scott Gilfoid: At today’s weigh-in between Arthur Abraham and Andre Dirrell, I couldn’t help noticing how scared Abraham looked. He looked really scared much more than I can ever remember him being. Abraham looked especially timid when he was forced to stand and look Dirrell in the eyes while standing directly in front of him. Abraham appeared incredibly nervous, looking as if he wanted to get away from Dirrell as fast as he could. This isn’t a good sign for Abraham. He usually has a cocky look to him at weigh-ins and when entering a fight.

But for some reason, Abraham looks as nervous as a cat on the 4th of July. I can understand why. Abraham is facing easily the best opponent during his entire career when he meets Dirrell on Saturday night at the Joe Louis Arena, in Detroit, Michigan. And Abraham is used to having a massive amount of Abraham supporters around him to give him encouragement, because all but two of his fights during his boxing career at the safe confines of Germany where he lives.

Tonight, Abraham will have to set foot in a foreign arena against one of the most talented fighters in all boxing, and I think reality is starting to dawn on Abraham. It’s one thing to think about facing a talented fighter like Dirrell weeks ahead of time, but quite another matter altogether when you realize that you’ll be facing him in less than 24 hours.

Abraham looks to be experiencing an old fashion case of the nerves. It could be that Abraham finally realizes he’s in with an opponent that he can’t beat. Dirrell is a one of a kind fighter, a 2004 Olympic Bronze Medalist for the United States, with blazing hand speed and power that most fighters can only dream of. Abraham has faced mostly a bunch of opponents that were badly over-matched due to the dreadful talent that permeates the middleweight division. Abraham was a champion in the middleweight division, to be sure, but a champion of what? There’s not a whole lot of talent in the middleweight division, so it really say much that Abraham was the champion over there.

I hope Abraham can work though his nerves before fight time because I want Dirrell to beat the best version of Abraham. Not some timid rabbit. A lot of people who have seen little of Abraham in action are already crowning him the champion of the Super Six tournament, all based on his knockout win over Jermain Taylor.

It’s too bad they haven’t seen a lot of Abraham’s fights like I have because if they had they would realize that he’s not as good as he looked in stopping Taylor. Heck, Taylor was stopped in his previous fight against Carl Froch, so there’s no reason to get excited about Abraham. If someone wants to know how good Abraham is I’d advise them to watch his recent fight against Lajuan Simon, which took place last year in March.

Abraham ended up winning the fight by a fairly large margin, but I had the fight about even. The fight, of course, was fought in Germany. I thought the scores were ridiculous. Anyway, Abraham fought like he always does, just covering up for two minutes and forty seconds of every round and then coming alive in the last 10 to 20 seconds to try and steal the rounds.

Mostly, Abraham badly missed with his punches in the last seconds. In replays after the rounds, the slow motion replay would show Abraham throwing a flurry of 10 to 15 punches, missing all but two or three. Of course, he’d still win the rounds based on this anemic total. At any rate, Simon made Abraham look old and slow in that fight, and that’s exactly what Dirrell will be doing.



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