By Scott Gilfoid: #4 WBO Paul Smith (35-4, 20 KOs) will be getting a second crack at WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (41-4, 28 KOs) on February 21st at the O2 World Arena, Kreuzberg, in Berlin, Germany.
Smith lost to Abraham five months ago by a fairly lopsided 12 round unanimous decision by the scores of 117-111, 119-109 and 117-111 last September. But because of all the bellyaching Smith and his fans did after him losing, he was able to get a rematch with Abraham.
It’s kind of a weird situation because normally you don’t see a challenger getting an immediate rematch after they lose a lopsided decision. It would be like Brandon Rios getting a rematch with Manny Pacquiao after he was schooled by him.
Picture Rios complaining nonstop about how he won the fight, and then their mutual promoter Bob Arum giving Rios a rematch, even though the one-sided nature of the fight didn’t warrant a rematch.
“I believe I can knock him out. I believe I’ve got the power to hurt anyone,” Smith said via Sky Ringside. “I believe I won the fight. If you don’t think I won the fight, you must have had it a draw or you must have it for Abraham round-by-round. I believe I did beat him last time. I didn’t get the decision or the belt. This time I will get the decision and the belt or I’ll get a knockout. But I’ll be leaving Germany with a world title.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnZBPqW15IU
I think Smith is really deluded if he believes that he won the fight with Abraham. That fight was as one-sided as it could be without Abraham knocking him out. There was no way that you could score the fight for Smith unless you had your eyes closed, because he was taking the bigger shots in EVERY round of the fight.
Not only was Abraham landing the harder shots, but was the busier fighter as well. He landed more shots and he landed the harder shots. I don’t know what you can say about Smith other than he tried hard.
You could see Smith was trying with the limited talent that he had going for him, but he just did enough to lose 11 of the 12 rounds of the fight.
That’s kind of what it’s like with Smith. I had the Abraham-Smith 1 fight scored 119-109, as Abraham was just too strong for Smith, and he landed the far better shot than Smith did in basciscally ever round of the fight. I did give Smith one mercy round, but that’s it.
Abraham is a very flawed fighter as we saw in his defeats in the Super Six tournament. Abraham lost to Andre Dirrell, Andre Ward and Carl Froch. He was schooled by all three of them. Abraham got a victory over Jermain Taylor in a 12th round knockout, but even in that fight he struggled badly.
Before taking part in the Super Six tournament, Abraham had held down the IBF middleweight title for many years. Oddly enough, Abraham never fought a good middleweight in all the years as he was the IBF champion, and he never fought anyone good before he became champion.
When Abraham finally did face some good fighters in the Super Six tournament, he was soundly beaten. Since leaving the Super Six tourney, Abraham has gone back to facing weak opposition. He’s fought the following guys since the Super Six tournament ended: Robert Stieglitz, Paul Smith, Nikola Sjekloca, Giovanni De Carolis, Willbeforce Shihepo, Mehdi Bouadla, Piotr Wilczewski, and Pablo Oscar Natalio Farias. I hate to say it, but those are a bunch of soft fighters in my view and not quality.
It’s interesting that Abraham’s promoters have matched him up against those guys instead of quality fighters. Abraham has fought Stieglitz three times, and you can bet that he’ll be fighting him for a fourth time in his first fight after the Smith rematch.
They just keep going round and round again. It’s pretty sad how the WBO title has become monopolized between Abraham and Stieglitz, because the two fighters haven’t faced any good super middleweights during in my view.
Comments are closed.