By Scott Gilfoid: Whatever chance that former International Boxing Federation middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (31-0, 25 KO’s) had in beating American Andre Dirrell (18-1, 13 KO’s) effectively disappeared as of today when it was announced that their stage 2 Super Six bout will be taking place at the Joe Louis Arena, in Detroit, Michigan. The significance of this is that the 26-year-old Dirrell comes from Flint, Michigan, which is roughly only 68 miles away from Detroit, a little over an hour away by automobile.

This means that there could be as many as 21,000 Dirrell fans in the audience cheering him on when he steps foot in the ring on March 27th against the unbeaten Abraham. In contrast, in Dirrell’s last fight, he fought in front of 8000 hostile fans that Dirrell had to fight in front of in Nottingham, England, in his controversial 12 round split decision loss against WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch in October 2009.

Dirrell, a 2004 Olympic Bronze Medalist for the United States, is in a must win situation in this fight. For him to have any chance in making it to the semi finals in the Super Six tournament, he must beat Abraham. Thankfully, Dirrell has pretty much every advantage in this fight – youth, hand speed, mobility, height, reach and possibly power.

The only thing that Abraham has going for him is a slight edge in experience. I would say it was a big edge for Abraham, but he’s faced a lot of fighters that I consider to be inferior while holding down the IBF middleweight title from 2005 to 2009. This fight will be a huge step up for Abraham, and it will be interesting to see how he does when facing an opponent that can actually fight. My guess is that Abraham will be hopelessly outclassed and will lose by either a lopsided 12 round decision or possibly a stoppage by the 9th or 10th rounds.

On the undercard, light middleweight contender Ronald Hearns (23-1, 18 KO’s), the son of boxing great Tommy Hearns, will be fighting against a still to be determined opponent.

Dirrell fans – or fans of Abraham – they can purchase tickets to the fight for the process of $175, $125, $100, $50 and $25. In comparison to some fights in Las Vegas between so-called mega talent, these prices are quite reasonable indeed.