Abraham decisions Stieglitz, captures WBO 168 lb title

By Boxing News - 03/01/2014 - Comments

By Jim Dower: Arthur Abraham (39-4, 28 KO’s) avenged his defeat by Robert Stieglitz (46-4, 26 KO’s) tonight by winning a 12 round split decision to capture his WBO super middleweight title at the GETEC Arena, Magdeburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany. The final judges scores were 113-112 for Stieglitz, and 115-110 and 114-111 for Abraham. In the 12th round, Abraham badly hurt Stieglitz with a big right hand early in the round and he then knocked him down with a right hand to seal the victory.

It was a pretty dirty fight with a lot of fouling from both fighters in the form of rabbit punches. In the 8th, Abraham was docked a point for throwing a rabbit shot. Stieglitz lost a point out of nowhere for holding in the 9th round. That was a bit of a controversial deduction. What hurt Stieglitz even more was that he clearly lost the round, which made it a 10-8 round for Abraham.

Stiegitz tried the same strategy in this fight as he did in their second fight with him starting out quickly and trying to overwhelm Abraham with punches. It didn’t work this time, though, because Abraham did a better job of letting his hands go instead of just covering up for the entire round. Abraham did have a swollen left eye early from the huge shots that Stieglitz was nailing him with.

In rounds 6 through 12, both fighters took turns hitting each other with monstrous shots. Abraham got the better of the action due to his power advantage, but Stieglitz wasn’t far behind him. Stieglitz looked a little gassed out in the 2nd hal of the fight due to the energy that he used up in the early going when he tried to overwhelm Abraham with punches.

With this victory, Abraham will likely take a couple of optional title defenses against weak opposition before he has to face his mandatory challenger. Hopefully it’s not Stieglitz again, because that would be the 4th fight between the two fighters in 2 years and that’s too many fights in a short period of time. Abraham and Stieglitz need to start fighting good quality opposition besides each other. Abraham hasn’t fought a good opponent since the Super Six tournament. And Stieglitz’s best opponent of his career is Abraham, which kind of tells you a little about the type of opposition that Stieglitz has faced.

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