By Scott Gilfoid: A lot of boxing fans make a big production about former International Boxing Federation middleweight champion Arthur Abraham’s clamshell defense and feel that he’ll be able to shut down whatever offense that Dirrell brings to the ring in their stage 2 Super Six tournament bout on March 6th. I think they’re wrong about Abraham. His clamshell defense is going to lead to Abraham getting drilled to pieces by the talented, speedy Dirrell.

Having a clamshell defense is nice, but it’s way too passive to be useful against a skilled fighter like Dirrell. Abraham may have been able to get away with using that defensive tactics against the grossly limited middleweight competition that he’s been feasting on in the talent poor middleweight division, but against a fighter like Dirrell, he’s going to be exposed badly.

Abraham reminds me a lot of Joshua Clottey with his high guard, low work rate and tendency to be economical with his punches. People say that Abraham has one-punch power because of his knockout wins over Edison Miranda (in the second fight) and his recent 12 round knockout over Jermain Taylor, but that’s completely wrong.

Miranda was badly weight drained when he fought Abraham for the second fight having taken off 30 pounds very quickly to make the middleweight limit for the fight. And Taylor had been knocked out months earlier in April by Carl Froch before stepping in the ring with Abraham. Besides that, Abraham hurt Taylor in the 9th round of their fight with a big right elbow. I don’t think he ever recovered from that shot.

But as far as Abraham’s clamshell defense goes, I sure hope Abraham tries that primitive technique against Dirrell on March 6th, because he’s going to take terrible beating if he does. That kind of thing won’t work against a modern fighter like Dirrell. Abraham will probably do what he always does and just cover up for two-thirds of every round and try to conserve strength.

However, if Dirrell will pull a Manny Pacquiao on Abraham if/when he uses that passive garbage by firing away with punch after punch. I can see the referee possibly stepping in and some point and pulling the plug on Abraham if he doesn’t come out of his clam and star throwing some punches. I can understand a little bit of energy conserving but not when he’s getting drilled with thirty shots to every one that he’s throwing.

When Abraham comes out of his turtle shell to start throwing punches at the end of the round, Dirrell will be ready for him by using his lateral movement to stay out of the way of Abraham’s wild shots. Abraham won’t likely hit anything. He has this bad habit of throwing the widest punches that I’ve ever seen.

It kind of reminds me of watching an batman shot with Adam West, playing Batman, is throwing these wide haymakers that are connecting to the heads of villains. But it looks so bad. I always wondered why the producers of the show didn’t have someone take West to the side and show him to throw punches, because he looked awful. Dirrell is going to eat Abraham up if he tries throwing that wide stuff in their fight.