By Scott Gilfoid: After listening to a lot of bellyaching from #4 WBO Paul Smith (35-4, 20 KOs) and his loyal fans about how he was robbed in his previous fight last September, WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (41-4, 28 KOs) intends to show no mercy on the 32-year-old Smith when he gets him inside the ring this month on February 21st in their rematch at the O2 World Arena, Kreuzberg, in Berlin, Germany.
Some boxing fans feel that the main reason why the soon to be 35-year-old Abraham is giving Smith a rematch is due to him feeling bad about the controversy surrounding their previous fight last year.
Abraham won the fight by scores that some boxing fans feel were too wide. At the same time many of Smith’s fans saw the fight as one where he should have been given the decision.
“He [Smith] should train hard because in the rematch I will show no mercy. Actually I just want to prove it to the English press who made the first fight into a scandal,” Abraham said via Fightnews.com.
If Abraham wants to avoid hearing the same complaining and nonstop bellyaching from people, he’s going to need to knock Smith out this time, because I have a feeling that Smith may complain even if he gets beaten a second time. Another decision win for Abraham could set the wheels in motion to where Smith complains again and we could see endless rematches if the World Boxing Organization doesn’t put their foot down and tell Abraham to move along.
The German based fighter can’t spend his entire career giving rematches over and over again against his opponents that automatically start complaining when they’re beaten by decisions.
I personally could only give Smith just one round in his last fight with Abraham. Smith did enough to lose basically every round of the fight, but I gave him one mercy round.
Smith’s problem was he was getting hit hard by Abraham in each round, and even in the rounds were Smith landed more punches than Abraham, it wasn’t be a substantial amount.
The punch stats were still close, but Abraham’s shots were landing with much more force than Smith’s weaker shots. That’s not surprising because Smith has never been considered a puncher before. You can’t expect Smith to produce power when he’s never been a power puncher.
Abraham only has himself and his promoters at Sauerland Events to blame for this rematch. If he didn’t agree to the rematch, he could have moved on with his career instead of putting himself in a potential endless rematch cycle. I mean, you never want to have to go into a fight thinking that you have to score a knockout in order to quiet the bellyaching from boxing fans. I think that’s the situation where Abraham is in right now. He’s got all the pressure on him in this fight because he might need a KO otherwise the complaining from Smith’s fans could start anew.
Smith has talked a good game about how he plans on knocking Abraham out, but let’s be realistic here; Smith isn’t going to be able to score a knockout of Abraham. Heck, if Carl Froch, Andre Dirrell and Andre Ward weren’t able to knock Abraham out then how is Smith going to be able to do it.
For Smith, I think it’ll be another moral victory if he goes the full 12 rounds with Abraham again. If that happens, I suspect there will be more complaining if Smith winds up losing another decision.
Comments are closed.