Paul Smith vs. Arthur Abraham this Saturday, September 27th in Germany

By Boxing News - 09/21/2014 - Comments

abraham4By Scott Gilfoid: Next Saturday night, #5 WBO Paul Smith (35-3, 20 KOs) will be challenging WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (40-4, 28 KOs) for his WBO 168 pound title at the Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.

This is one of those modern day Rocky stories for the soon to be 32-year-old Smith, because he’s stepping way, way out of his class in taking on the hard hitting Abraham.

It doesn’t matter that Abraham has been badly exposed in the past in losses to talents like Andre Ward and Andre Dirrell, he still packs a punch with either hand and he’s got the perfect guy in front of him to score a quick knockout on Saturday in the form of Smith.

Smith’s problems are many when it comes to this fight. First off, he’s never beaten a top quality fighter during his career, and that’s obviously going to hurt him on Saturday when he gets in with a world class guy like Abraham.

Smith’s best wins have come against domestic level opposition like Tony Quigley and Tony Dodson. When Smith has stepped up to fringe level fighters like James DeGale and George Groves, he’s been dominated and stopped. DeGale knocked Smith out in the 9th round in 2010, whereas Groves knocked Smith out in the 2nd round in their fight in 2011. However, Smith did stagger Groves with a big right hand high on his forehead at the end of the 1st round.

Unfortunately for Smith, he ended up breaking his hand in the process of nailing Groves. Had the injury not occurred, it’s quite possible that Smith would have put Groves out of his misery in the start of the 2nd round, because he was there for the taking.

“How great is it? Another British super middleweight challenging for a world title,” George Groves said. “We can take over the division and have a monopoly. I hope we do.”

Abraham and Smith are kind of in the same boat in that neither of them have faced a quality opponent in ages. Abraham has had several fights against Robert Stieglitz, who many boxing fans recognize him as being a former WBO paper champion. In other words, a former weak link among the champions. Abraham keeps fighting Stieglitz over and over again with soft opponents mixed in between. Abraham gets past Smith, who you can make a strong argument that he’s another soft job for Abe, then we’re going to see Abraham defending his title next against the winner of the Stieglitz vs. Felix Sturm fight, which takes place on November 8th.

I see Abraham going out and nailing Smith with some huge shots in the first couple of rounds, and likely knocking him out by at least the 2nd round. I can’t see Smith being able to go past the 2nd due to his past history of dropping for the ten count when hurt, and because of how hard Abraham punches.



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