By Scott Gilfoid: Robert Stieglitz (44-3, 25 KO’s) defeated WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (36-4, 28 KO’s) tonight by an injured related 4th round stoppage in Magdeburg, Germany, and already Stieglitz – and Abraham – are talking about a third fight with one another rather than looking to fight other guys.
I can understand it from Abraham’s point of view because he was really pounded tonight in getting his left eye closed and beaten up. But for Stieglitz, you’d think he would want to fight someone else for a change instead of just Abraham, but it looks like that’s the safest fight for him and the biggest money fight he can make given that Stieglitz is a German based fighter like him.
Stieglitz said to Fightnews.com “I always enjoy boxing against Arthur Abraham. I hope the managers agree. I’m ready.”
Abraham said “There will be a rematch.”
So there that’s that. Abraham and Stieglitz will be fighting each other again rather than someone else. My hope is that the World Boxing Organization blocks this move because we just had Abraham and Stieglitz fighting again because of a rematch clause. Now that’s over with there should be a chance for other fighters to get a chance at the WBO 168 lb. title rather than Stieglitz and Abraham going around and around and around for years on end.
It just makes a mockery of the WBO title when you see things like that.
Abraham is going to need to do some serious tinkering with his fighting style if he wants to make sure he doesn’t get beaten up again because he’s not going to get far in a third fight with Stieglitz if he uses that same old tired turtle shell defense that he’s been using his entire career.
That style isn’t going to work anymore and he should realize or retire. Right now I just both of these guys are limited fighters that can pretty much only fight each other because if they the other super middleweight champions they’ll lose. It just makes the WBO title look like a minor title with these guys only fighting each other or when they do fight other guys, they face weak opponents.
Look at the guys that Stieglitz fought when he was the WBO champion previously. These are the guys that Stieglitz fought before getting beaten by Abraham last year:
Ruben Eduardo Acosta
Eduard Gutknech
Enrique Ornelas
Khoren Gevor
Henry Weber
Nader Hamdan
Those are totally weak opponents, and are more like the kind of guys that an EBU super middleweight champion would fight rather an actual world champion. Like I said, the fact that Abraham and Stieglitz are just fighting each other or weak opponents in between, that just tells me the WBO belt has become the weak link. I think it needs to be dropped from the big four and replaced by the IBO or something.
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