(Photo Credit: Sebastian Heger) By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn is feeling quite confident that his fighter Paul Smith will beat WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham this Saturday night in their rematch to become a world champion at the O2 Arena in Berlin, Germany.
Hearn believes that the first fight between Smith and Abraham was a close affair with Abraham narrowly winning the fight by a 12 round decision. But this time, Hearn is backing his fighter Smith, 32, to top Abraham and pick up the WBO strap.
Smith looks like he doesn’t belong in the middleweight division. To me, he looks like a middleweight with an extra 10-15 pounds of fat on his frame that he needs to shed. I believe that Smith was a far better fighter when he was competing at middleweight rather than super middleweight.
Honestly, Smith seems like a very nice chap, and he’s clearly making a name for himself in the broadcast field with his gift for gab, but I don’t see him as having a ghost of a chance of beating Abraham in this fight. The thing is I’m not even remotely impressed with Abraham as a fighter, but Smith is even below him in terms of talent in my judgment. Like I said, Smith seems like a good guy, but I don’t see the talent as being there for him in this fight at least as far as him winning it.
“The first fight was very, very close,” Hearn said via Skysports.com. “I think you are going to see a different fight this time. Now he [Smith] knows that he can be a world champion by beating Arthur Abraham. This is Paul Smith’s time to win a world title and everybody believes it’s going to happen.”
I wonder who precisely Hearn is referring to when he says “everybody believes it’s going to happen.” I can’t imagine Hearn being under the illusion that the entire boxing world is siding with Smith to beat Abraham. I haven’t heard too many boxing fans picking Smith to win this fight.
To be sure, there is an occasional fan that pops up out of the woodwork to give a prediction of a Smith victory, but we’re talking a pretty rare event. Most of the boxing fans that I see chiming in on the Abraham-Smith II fight are picking Abraham to win the fight, with most of the fans predicting a KO victory for the German based fighter.
“I believe I’m at my best. I’ve improved since the first fight,” Smith said. “I believe I handled well last time and I’ll handle it even better this time.”
I don’t think Smith handled at all well last time that he was in the ring with Abraham last year.
I saw Smith getting hit a lot, and getting hit by the harder shots in the fight. Smith tried hard, but he didn’t have the punching power to make it a competitive match-up. I mean, there was no time in the fight that I didn’t feel that Abraham was in control of the action.
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