By Dave Lahr: Former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Jermain Taylor (28-3-1, 17 KO’s) has his back against the wall this Saturday night in facing former IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (30-0, 24 KO’s) on his home turf at the O2 World Arena, in Berlin, Germany. Taylor, 31, is two years removed from losing his World Boxing Council and World Boxing Organization middleweight titles to Kelly Pavlik.

In looking at how easily Pavlik was handled by 43-year-old Bernard Hopkins last year in October it seems incredible that a talented fighter like Taylor ever lost to Pavlik in the first place. However, a combination of bad strategy – going right at Pavlik in their first fight and trying to slug with him – and stamina problems led to Taylor losing both of the fights to Pavlik.

If Taylor has found an answer to his conditioning problems, he’ll be hard to beat in the Super Six tourney. Taylor ran out of gas in his recent fight against Carl Froch, and was stopped in the 12th round in a fight that Taylor was leading in up until the 12th. Taylor says that he has come into training camp needing to take off over 20 pounds and the long runs that it required for him to take the fight weight off caused him to be weak for his fights. This time, Taylor has come into training camp much leaner and closer to his 168 pound super middleweight limit. He thinks he’s found the answer to his stamina issues. He’ll have to prove his theory because Abraham won’t be going anywhere and will be still fighting hard late into the fight. Abraham is a rare fighter that carries his power late and is equally dangerous in the later rounds than he is in the early part of the fight.

Abraham, 29, made the move up from the middleweight division for the same reason that Taylor did. Abraham is having problems making the 160 pound weight limit now that he’s gotten older and he’s had to take off more and more weight each time he prepares for a fight. Now close to 30, Abraham is looking to continue his success in the higher weight class where he will hopefully not have to struggle as much to make the fight. Abraham’s walking around weight is in the 180 region, so he will have to take off some weight to make the super middleweight limit.

But the eight pounds that separates the super middleweight class from the middleweight division may keep Abraham from slowing down in the later rounds. Abraham has shown the effects of having to take off massive amounts of weight too in his recent fights, but in his case, he’s faced much less dangerous opponents than Taylor.

Indeed, Abraham’s last seven opponents have been as follows: Sebastian Demers, Khoren Gevor, Elvin Ayala, Edison Miranda, Raul Marquez, Lajuan Simon and Mahir Oral. All good fighters, each of them, but clearly not in the same class as Carl Froch and Kelly Pavlik. Taylor would likely be still unbeaten if he had faced the same opponents rather than Froch and Pavlik. And that’s one of the criticisms of Abraham. He hasn’t faced super talented fighters and his German management hasn’t gone out of their ways to put Abraham in with dangerous opponents like Pavlik. For this reason, it’s hard to tell how good Abraham is. We know he’s good enough to beat them aforementioned fighters but Taylor is arguably a lot better than them.