By Scott Gilfoid: Arthur Abraham (31-0, 25 KO’s) finds himself in the enviable position of leading the pack of super middleweights in the Super Six tournament by virtue of his 12th round knockout of Jermain Taylor. Abraham’s victory has had the effect of turning him from the fighter who least was predicted to win the Super Six tourney to the one that is now being favored by more than a few boxing fans who are seeing him with new eyes.
However, I hate to be the one to rain on Abraham’s parade just at the moment of his glory but his time in the sun is about to end when he steps foot in the ring against Andre Dirrell (18-1, 13 KO’s) on January 23, 2010, in a fight that will take place at a still to be determined location in the United States.
Dirrell lost his first fight of the Super Six tournament by questionable circumstances in a fight against World Boxing Council super middleweight champion Carl Froch on October 17th, in Froch’s home city of Nottingham. Although Dirrell fought his heart out and appeared to win the fight by a fairly convincing decision, two of the judges scored it for Froch.
I’m not going to beat this into the ground by rehashing this painful loss for Dirrell, but needless to say, Dirrell’s loss left a lot of questions about that fight. Unfortunately, there’s no rematches in the Super Six tournament, so this fight can’t be done over again unless by chance Froch and Dirrell meet later on in the tournament. Dirrell will be doing his part in making that happen by defeating Abraham next year in January.
Abraham is being given way too much credit for his knockout win over Taylor. It’s a great a win, but come on let’s be honest here, Taylor’s chin was probably compromised well before the Super Six tournament started and he might have been better off not participating at all.
I can’t give Abraham any credit for that win. If this was a knockout win over someone like Andre Ward, Dirrell or Mikkel Kessler, then I’d be ready to crown Abraham as the king of the Super Six, but that’s not what happened. What I saw was a sloppy fighter throwing wild shots and not being very active in his fight against Taylor.
When Abraham did eventually hurt Taylor in the 9th, he tagged him with a right elbow to the head. The referee, I suppose, didn’t see the elbow from Abraham and didn’t stop the action to save Taylor from taking needless blows to the head. Whether Abraham hurt Taylor or not, his hand speed was as slow as molasses and his work rate was just as poor it’s been in the past year.
Supposedly, the argument for Abraham’s low work rate was because he was having problems making the middleweight 160 limit. By moving up a weight class to the 168 pound super middleweight class, it was supposed to fix Abraham’s problems with low punch output. However, I didn’t see any change at all with Abraham.
And that’s not good news for Abraham, because throwing 10 punches per round, which is what Abraham was doing against Taylor, won’t get the job done. Abraham won’t be able to depend on the judges’ in Germany to give him the benefit of the doubt, because the fight is being held in the United States. Because of that, I see Dirrell working Abraham over like a punching bag, raining shots on him at every angle and making him miss all night long.
This is going to be a really easy fight for Dirrell and it’s going to change the minds of many people about him. After this fight, Dirrell will be the one that boxing fans see as the eventual winner of the Super Six tourney, not Kessler or Abraham.
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