Photos: Courtesy Red Line Media Group – By Nate Anderson: In looking at the recent photos of super middleweight Edison Miranda (30-2, 26 KOs), photos of him looking far more leaner and cutup than usual, I can’t help but think that he’s either over-trained himself for his rematch with IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (26-0, 21 KOs) this Saturday at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Hollywood, Florida, or Miranda has depleted himself of water in order to make the catch-weight limit of 166 lbs. Whatever the case, I don’t think he looks good at all. He looks far too think for him, like he’s lost too much weight and it’s also had the effect of making him look older, as if he’s aged visibly in the matter of months.

I know that he’s said to walk around at 190+ pounds in between fights, with most of it in the way of muscle rather than fat. This would seem to indicate that Miranda likely had to strip off a considerable amount of muscle – or water – in order to make the weight limit of 166, which seems to have given him the lean, over-trained and muscle starved look in the recent photos of him. It certainly looks good for a person that would want to enter a bathing suit contest or perhaps an amateur bodybuilding contest, but as far as boxing goes, he looks much too thin for him.

I’m not sure whether he’s been stressed out about fighting Abraham again, and has compensated by training harder, perhaps a shade too hard for what was needed for the occasion. Being ripped is good, but probably the worst thing he could do for the sport of boxing. We recently have seen a good example of what can happen when a fighter drains himself down to make a fight weight, when Chris Byrd, normally a heavyweight, took off 30 lbs of mostly muscle to fight as a light heavyweight.

In this case, Byrd had nothing in the way of power and was badly beaten by Shaun George, eventually getting stopped in the 9th round of a badly one-sided bout. Miranda looks a lot like Byrd did before he stepped in the ring with George in their May 16th bout. Miranda doesn’t look in shape, he looks depleted and his muscles appear to be much smaller than they were in his previous fights. Though he’s been fighting at only two lbs heavier than the 166 pound catch-weight limit, this wouldn’t appear to be the reason why Miranda looks so starved in his recent photos.

Obviously, he either over-trained or starved himself down to make the 166 lb limit and it’s not something that will likely benefit him on Saturday night. When somethings not broken, you don’t want to mess around and try to fix it. In this case, I’m referring to how Miranda looked and performed in his previous fight with Arthur Abraham in September 2006. At that time, Miranda looked good, had lots of muscle and didn’t have the look of being over-trained like he is now. He fought well, good enough to win and should have perhaps won the fight if the judging and referee had been up to the mark.

However, I see no reason for Miranda to have trained – or whatever – as hard as he appears to have for this fight. Indeed, he may have been better off coming in a little fat and with more muscle, which would allow for him to slug with his usual awesome power and perhaps take Abraham out. The way Miranda looks now, he doesn’t looks as if he’ll be able to fight very hard for more than a few rounds without tiring out quickly and either getting stopped or taking a terrible beating.

I don’t see how this will help him, because not only will he not be able to fight as long and hard, but his power will also be much less. Bases on this, I can’t see Miranda winning the fight. I now see him getting knocked out probably by the 5th or 6th rounds. It’s too bad, because a win over Abraham would have been a huge victory for him, setting himself up for future matches against other top fighters like Mikkel Kessler and Lucian Bute.

I’m almost certain that Miranda won’t win this fight, although I wish I were wrong about this, for he deserves to win bases on how screwed up the last fight was between him and Abraham. However, he doesn’t look well, not even close to being in boxing shape and that worries me more than a little. He should have trained as always, and, if anything, focused even more on strength training than before. His power really bothered Abraham last time out, and it would seem idiotic to focus on stripping down his muscles rather than building them up.