WBO orders Abraham to face Stieglitz again

By Boxing News - 02/26/2015 - Comments

Stieglitz_Abraham_V6P1926By Scott Gilfoid: The World Boxing Organization is doing WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham a huge favorite by ordering him to face #1 WBO Robert Stieglitz within the next 90 days rather than having Abraham take on an arguably tougher contender like Gilberto Ramirez.

Abraham has already fought Stieglitz three times in back and forth fights that took place in Germany. By the WBO ordering yet another fight between Abraham and Stieglitz, they really did them both a big favor, because if Abraham has to defend his title against one of the younger contenders with talent, he’ll likely lose.

Stieglitz at least is someone he has a good chance of beating. Abraham has already beaten Stieglitz twice, so I see Abe continuing with that trend.

“Finally everything is definite! Short and clear. Dear Arthur: There is only one goal – to earn my championship belt back again,” Stieglitz said via Fightnews.com.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8Plbvcsxtc

Abraham last fought Stieglitz in March of 2014, beating him by a 12 round split decision by the scores of 114-111 and 115-110 for Abraham, and 113-112 for Stieglitz.

Abraham outworked Stieglitz and got the better of him with power shots. I suspect we’ll see the same thing happen when they face each other for a fourth time in the next 90 days. Stieglitz doesn’t have enough power, and unless Abraham doesn’t throw enough punches, he should win the fight without any problems.

This probably won’t be the last time that we see Abraham and Stieglitz face each other, because they have a pattern where they face 2-3 easy opponents in between fighting each other in rematches.

The pattern could easily have been disrupted years ago had Abraham or Stieglitz had to fight someone like the Dirrell brothers. Heck, even someone like James DeGale would likely beat both Stieglitz and Abraham.

Regardless of who wins the fourth fight between Abraham and Stieglitz, I can see them fighting each other again for a 5th fight in 2016, and then a 6th time in 2017.

As long as one of them has the WBO title, I think they’ll continue to go back and forth with fights against each other. The WBO’s ranking makes it easy for these continuous fights to take place because of the high ratings they give the two fighters when they’re in the contender stage.

Abraham is coming off two back to back fights against Paul Smith, who the WBO had ranked highly at #4 with their organization. Smith later said that he felt that Abraham is the 2nd best fighter in the super middleweight division despite Abraham having already lost to Andre Dirrell and Andre Ward, both of which are still currently active fighters.

Abraham hasn’t looked good in a fight in years since he left the middleweight division. He fights in spurts, and he doesn’t seem to have the stamina needed for him to be able to fight hard enough to win rounds against the better fighters. But due to the match-making that’s been done for Abraham, he arguably hasn’t faced a quality opponent since he left the Super Six tournament, where he was beaten soundly by Dirrell, Ward and Carl Froch.



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