Arthur Abraham wants to end the Paul Smith story on February 21st

By Boxing News - 12/12/2014 - Comments

abraham789By Scott Gilfoid: WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (41-4, 28 KOs) will be looking to finish off Paul Smith (35-4, 20 KOs) in their rematch on February 21st at the O2 World Arena, Kreuzberg, Berlin, Germany.

Abraham, 34, doesn’t want another case of Smith complaining afterwards about being robbed and then jockeying for a third fight. Abraham wants to make sure that Smith has no argument for a third fight by beating him in a convincing manner that leaves him – and his loyal fans – with no case for a third fight.

Abraham beat Smith by a fairly one-sided fight last September in winning a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores of 117-111, 119-109 and 117-111. Some of the rounds were competitive, but even those rounds appeared to be clear Abraham rounds from what I could see.

Smith didn’t have the power or the work rate to clearly win a lot of rounds. I had Smith winning 1-2 rounds in the fight, and even those rounds were toss-up rounds that could have easily gone Abraham’s way.

“On February 21 I will show no mercy. I will deliver a clear result – then there will be no further discussions,” Abraham said via Fightnews.com.

Abraham pretty much will need to show no mercy to Smith because if he doesn’t we could see Smith complaining that he got robbed again if the fight goes to the cards.

Abraham would be better off not letting the fight go to the cards if he wants to keep Smith from having an opportunity to complain that he won the fight.
Abraham didn’t have to give Smith a rematch. He could have told his promoter Kallie Sauerland to move on and match him against the likes of Robert Stieglitz, James DeGale or Gilberto Ramirez.

It’s obviously no fun for champions like Abraham to have to go over old ground and fight someone he recently beat just because they’re yapping about being robbed. It’s got to be tough for Abraham to get stuck fighting a guy he just whipped in a fairly convincing manner. It’s like watching the same movie over and over again instead of moving on.

If Abraham was a young guy with his entire career ahead of him then I don’t think this would be a big deal. But he’s a fighter nearing the end of his career, so having to go back and fight the same guy again is a real negative for Abraham, because there are bigger fights out there for him than Paul Smith.

What Abraham obviously doesn’t need is for him to keep beating Smith and each time having Smith complain each time that he should have been given the decision. And then they keep fighting each other endlessly instead of Abraham moving on with his career.



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