Pictures courtesy of Winfried Mausolf / Sauerland Event – By Scott Gilfoid: Recently in an article at Vindy.com, WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik remarked that the six super middleweight fighters – Arthur Abraham, Jermain Taylor, Andre Ward, Andre Dirrell, Mikkel Kessler and Carl Froch – would “Ruin their careers for peanuts” by taking part in the tournament that begins later on this year in October. My immediate thoughts were that Pavlik sounded hurt and disappointed that he hadn’t been asked to participate in the tournament and was making a snap remark by devaluing something that he might actually want.
However, Pavlik might have a point in all this about it hurting the careers of the fighters that get beaten. There’s a good chance that at least three or more of the fighters in the tournament will come out of this much less respected in the boxing community than they were before they started, especially if they’re knocked out or beaten badly in the same way that Pavlik was schooled by 44-year-old Bernard Hopkins.
Losses like that tend to stick in the boxing public’s minds and it often takes years, if ever, for people’s perceptions about a fighter to change much. Right of the bat, I can see several fighters in the tournament that I can see having a lot of problems starting with Carl Froch.
He’s showed toughness that goes beyond what appears to be limited ability, but his toughness and his to win probably won’t be enough for him to compete against the sheer talent of fighters like Dirrell, Kessler and Ward. For Froch to beat fighters in that class, it takes god given talent like hand speed, brutal power and good movement.
Unfortunately, Froch comes up short in each of those departments and is left with only his fierce determination and strong chin. In a perfect world that would be all that Froch needs to beat fighters like them, but unfortunately I can’t see any good coming of him tangling with those guys.
I see Froch getting a Hopkins type schooling and ending up soundly beaten each time. Now I know Froch will get a lot of visibility by fighting in front of the huge Showtime audiences, but I don’t know that it will help his boxing career any by having him seen getting beaten over and over again and wiped out in the first portion of the tournament.
Jermain Taylor (28-3-1, 17 KO‘s), at one time the WBC/WBO middleweight champion, has looked like a completely different fighter since losing his titles to Pavlik in 2007. Taylor has struggled with problems with fading in his fights and recently was defeated by Froch by a 12th round TKO in April.
Taylor looked good for six rounds and almost as if right on cue, Taylor faded in the second of the fight and eventually was taken out. I don’t whether it’s age or what, but Taylor’s problem with stamina started up around the same time that his power dropped off four years ago.
Indeed, Taylor, once a good knockout puncher, hasn’t stopped an opponent in four long years spanning his last nine fights. He has now been beaten three out of his last four fights as well. Knowing that, I can’t picture Taylor beating the likes of Kessler, Froch, Abraham, Dirrell or Ward. More than likely, Taylor will be wiped out in the first part of the tournament and won’t make the semi finals.
Arthur Abraham (30-0, 24 KO’s), an unbeaten fighter who is giving up his International Boxing Federation middleweight crown, to move up to the super middleweight division because of his problems making weight in the middleweight division.
Although Abraham dominated most of his competition during his four year reign as the IBF champion, he’s grossly undersized at only 5’10” for the tournament. In contrast, most of the fighters he will be competing against are at least 6’1” with much longer arms than him.
Abraham had few real notable wins as a middleweight champion, beating a long list of good but not great fighters like Edison Miranda and Raul Marquez. I think Abraham is going to have problems by not only the huge size disparity between him and the other fighters in the tournament, but I also think the talent level will be for too much for him to handle.
After all, the middleweight division isn’t exactly loaded with talent and many of the champions are what I consider to be more of a top 10 fighter than real champions in my book. If Felix Sturm and Kelly Pavlik were to move up and participate as super middleweights, I can’t see them succeeding or winning titles during their careers.
The talent level is just too good at super middleweight and they would be likely weeded out. As for as the tournament goes, Abraham might be able to pick up a win against Taylor, but that’s still a big maybe. Taylor has much better hand speed, size and overall skills compared to Abraham and it won’t easy for him.
Abraham has suffered with problems with his work rate in most of his recent fights and if he continues to fight hard only in the last 20 seconds of every round, it won’t be enough to beat any of the super middleweights, not even Taylor. As such, I can’t see Abraham getting past the first bracket.
So I’m partially in agreement with Pavlik about the tournament hurting the careers of the fighters, but only for a select few. At least three of the fighters, probably Dirrell, Ward and Kessler will come out of the tournament looking good win or lose.
It won’t matter if two of these fighters get beaten as long as they make it to the semi finals and are competing against each other. It’s a win-win situation in that case for all of them because they will be getting constant press in the boxing world and a lot of frequent showings on Showtime.
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