By Scott Gilfoid: Next month on March 6th, unbeaten former International Boxing Federation middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (31-0, 25 KO’s) will be facing probably the toughest fight of his entire seven year pro career when he faces the ultra talented American Andre Dirrell (18-1, 13 KO’s) in the stage 2 part of the Super Six tournament competition at the Agua Caliente Casino, in Rancho Mirage, California.

Technically, this is considered to be a home court advantage for the 26-year-old Dirrell, but it hardly can be considered much of an advantage considering that Dirrell comes from Flint, Michigan, and the boxing fans in California probably could care less about whether Abraham is a foreigner or not. If they like him as a fighter, they will support him. As such, I don’t see the crowd as being an advantage for Dirrell in this fight, unlike the large noisy crowd that showed up to support Dirrell’s last opponent, Carl Froch, in Nottingham, England.

Froch, 32, won that fight by a controversial 12 round split decision that many boxing fans felt was a home town decision. For Abraham’s part, he is coming off a 12th round knockout over Jermain Taylor on October 17th. Abraham, 29, is likely looking at that win as evidence that he will continue to do well in the Super Six tournament.

Indeed, many boxing fans who saw Abraham for the first time in his fight with Taylor, are now predicting that Abraham will win the entire Super Six tournament. I’m not one of them. I see several fighters that I don’t think Abraham can ever get by and those are Mikkel Kessler, Dirrell and Andre Ward. I can see Abraham beating Taylor replacement Allan Green without too many problems and I can also see him beating Froch.

However, `Abraham is going to taste his first defeat on March 6th against the blazing fast Dirrell. This is going to be a huge shock to Abraham when he sets foot in the ring against Dirrell. Not only will Abraham be four inches shorter than the 6’2” Dirrell, but he’ll also be giving up three inches in reach.

The reach will be even more than that, because Abraham doesn’t throw very many jabs and fights in a real tight manner as if he has no flexibility. Abraham mainly throws power shots in wild attacks near the end of every round. He’s good at impressing judges with his late work, even when he’s been badly outworked during the vast majority of the round.

It goes to show that judges don’t have the ability sometimes to see past the last 20 to 30 seconds of every round. This is why Dirrell has to fight hard for the entire three minutes of every round and make sure that he stays alert to Abraham’s late round stealing flurries that he likes to throw. I can see Dirrell winning every round of this fight without any problems as long as he avoids Abraham’s clumsy attacks.

Dirrell has to be careful he doesn’t get hit with any of Abraham’s elbows because he’s deadly when he lands those shots. That’s about the biggest thing I think Dirrell needs to worry about to win this fight. Just avoid the elbows and stay alert for the last 30 seconds because that’s when Abraham does most of his punching.