(Photo credit: Sauerland Events) By Scott Gilfoid: #5 WBO Paul Smith (35-3, 20 KOs) is hoping to pull off a huge upset this month in would could be a once in a lifetime title shot against WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (40-4, 28 KOs) on September 27th at the Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.
Smith wants to beat Abraham and then bring the strap back to the UK with him as a trophy from battle, but it’s going to be awfully tough for him to do that given the huge step up he’s making in this fight.
Abraham says Smith, 31, should just forget about any ideas he has of beating him in this fight, because he doesn’t see it happening.
“He can forget that,” said Abraham via Fightnews.com. “The belt and title will naturally stay with me in Germany!”
Abraham is arguably the weakest of the 5 super middleweight champions that hold down belts at this time at 168, but he might be just a little too good for Smith to pull off an upset. Stranger things have happened in boxing, of course, but the odds are slim that Smith is going to be able to well enough to score an upset win over Abraham.
We’ve seen Abraham get beaten in the past by the talented Andre Dirrell and Andre Ward. Even if Carl Froch and Robert Stieglitz have wins over Abraham. Then there’s Abraham’s controversial wins over Edison Miranda in their first fight, and Abraham’s win over Willbeforce Shihepo.
I had Abraham losing both of those fights, both of which took place in his native Germany. So, Abraham is beatable against fighters that bring their A-game and fight smart, but I’m just not so sure that Smith has the talent needed for him to defeat him and take his WBO strap to England so he can parade it around for all to see. It would be easily Smith’s biggest win of his entire career if he were to defeat him.
Right now, Smith’s biggest wins of his career have come against Tony Dodson and Tony Quigley. We’re not talking big wins, are we? Smith took a slight step up in class against James DeGale and George Groves not too long ago, but both guys knocked him out. As such, you can see there’s some limits to Smith’s talent.
The thing that gives the impression that Smith is going to get knocked out against Abraham is the kind of shape that Smith has been recently. He doesn’t look trim like he was in the early part of his career. I mean, he’s carrying around a coat of fat on his frame, and he seems even slower than he was back then.
Smith’s stamina isn’t so good, as I see a lot of clinching by him. Indeed, he likes to throw a punch and then grab in a clinch, as if the effort of throwing one punch has tired him out. I’m not sure what’s going on with his stamina, but Smith looks like he could trim of 20 pounds easily from his frame and fight at middleweight rather than super middleweight.
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