By Scott Gilfoid: #5 WBO Paul Smith (35-3, 20 KOs) will be getting a title shot against WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (40-4, 28 KOs) on September 27th in Kiel, Germany. This is an optional title defense in which Abraham’s promoters at Sauerland Events have handpicked the 31-year-old Smith.
Abraham hasn’t shown much interest in taking on any dangerous opponents like Andre Ward and some of the other top fighters. He’s kind of been locked into back and forth fights against Robert Stieglitz. When the two of them aren’t facing each other, they’re facing little known fringe contenders.
Happy to also confirm that Abraham v Smith will be on @DasErste in Germany and @SkySports in the UK #AbrahamSmith
— Kalle+NisseSauerland (@SauerlandBros) July 19, 2014
For example, Abraham has fought Stiegltiz three out of his last seven fights. In between those fights, Abraham has faced Nikola Sjekloca, Giovanni De Carolis, Willbeforce Shihepo and Mehdi Bouadla. Those were all pretty much safe fights that Abraham had an excellent chance of winning. He did appear to lose the fight to Shihepo, but was still given a 12 round decision win over him in Germany.
Smith really hasn’t done much to deserve a title shot based on his competition in the past three years. He was stopped by George Groves in 2 rounds in 2011. Smith’s wins since then have been against Tommy Tolan, Tony Dodson, David Sarabia and Jamie Ambler.
Granted, Smith has all four of his fights, but he’s basically spent the past three years facing lower level tune-up tight fights. Normally the tune-ups after a loss disappear after a couple of fights, but Smith spent the last there years on these low level fights.
The tickets for the Abraham-Smith fight go on sale this Monday. This is not a good fight, but it’s kind of par for the course for Abraham when he’s not fighting Stieglitz. He takes it easy in between his fights against Stieglitz, who himself was a champion who failed to distinguish himself in his three years as the WBO super middleweight champion. He faced largely weak opposition during each of those years until losing his strap to Abraham in 2012.
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