By Eric Thomas: Former IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (32-3, 26 KO’s) will try to turn his career around in the new year against Argentinian Pablo Farias (19-1, 11 Ko’s) in a scheduled 12 round bout at the Baden Arena in Offenburg, Baden-Wurttemburg, Germany.

Abraham, 31, recently signed a three year contract with his promotional company Sauerland and hopes to turn things around after losing three of his last four fights. All three losses occurred in the Super Six tournament where Abraham was forced to take on quality fighters over and over again. Fighting at 168lbs wasn’t a good fit for Abraham, who plans on getting his weight down to 160lbs and trying to resurrect his career at that weight.

But for this fight against the Argentinian Farias, the fight will take place at super middleweight. Abraham, 5’10”, clearly is far too short to compete against the better fighters at super middleweight and needs to find a way to get back down to middleweight if he’s to have any chance of ever winning another title.

Farias, 23, has faced mostly 2nd tier opposition his entire three-year pro career. He stepped it up a little in his last fight against Jose Alberto Clavero and lost by a 5th round disqualification. Farias hit the deck in the 1st round and was taking punishment in the fight.

Abraham should win this fight without too many problems if he fight harder than 20 seconds per round. Abraham has to let his punches go and figure out how to fight for the entire three minutes of every round instead of just at the tail end of the rounds.