Abraham goes after Stieglitz on August 25th

By Boxing News - 07/22/2012 - Comments

Image: Abraham goes after Stieglitz on August 25thBy William Mackay: 32-year-old former IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (34-3, 27 KO’s) will be looking to turn his sagging career around next month against WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz (42-2, 23 KO’s) on August 25th at the O2 World Arena in Berlin, Germany.

Abraham can’t afford to lose this fight, because he’s not going to keep getting big title fights thrown into his lap just to see him fail each time. The 5’9″ Abraham has fought for world titles at 168 twice in the past two years, and failed miserably while competing in the Super Six tournament against the likes of Andre Ward, Carl Froch, Jermain Taylor and Andre Dirrell.

Abraham lost three out of the four fights he competing in, and looked out of his class. Now that the Super Six tournament has ended, Abraham has once again his grove, albeit against fringe contenders that are a million miles away from the talent of the fighters that Abraham fought in the Super Six tourney.

Stieglitz is still kind of an unknown because he looked awful in getting dominated by Librado Andrade in an 8th round TKO in July 2008. However, with careful matchmaking by his German promoters, Stieglitz has won his last 11 fights against decent but hardly great opposition. He’s beaten most of the trialhorses and fringe contenders in the division, but he’s not been put in with the very best fighters at 168.

It hasn’t looked like Stieglitz’s promoters were all that interested in matching him tough, because he’s kind of been matched the same way that German based WBA Super World middleweight champion Felix Sturm has been matched by putting him in with beatable guys and not taking on the truly best fighters in the weight class.

Stieglitz will likely fall apart from the pressure that Abraham puts on him in this fight. Abraham is limited and has problems against tall opponents with boxing skills, but he doesn’t well against feather-fisted opposition without the ability to move around the ring or block punches. Abraham has a tough fight winning streak since the Super Six tournament ended, beating Pable Oscar Natalio Fabio and Piotr Wilczewski.

Abraham has clearly been matched softly, but what do you expect? He never really fought anyone good in all the years he held the IBF middleweight title, and when he stepped up a level in the Super Six tourney, Abraham was put in his place with three straight losses. His promoters aren’t going to match him against any of those guys anytime soon, if ever.



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