By Scott Gilfoid: Arthur Abraham (31-0, 25 KO’s) has had nothing but success in his boxing career winning all thirty one of his fights. However, tonight the 30-year-old Abraham will be fighting a younger, much faster fighter with Andre Dirrell (18-1, 13 KO’s). Abraham, a slower fighter who depends on his power to get him through fights, will be facing a much quicker, more versatile fighter when he steps in the ring against Dirrell. However, what could end up hurting Abraham more than anything in this fight is his crab defense.

Abraham is good at blocking punches while hiding behind his crab defense. However, a crab defense is the exact wrong kind of fighting style to use against a fighter like Dirrell, who has a modern fighting style similar to a young Muhammad Ali. Ignoring the size differences between the two fighters, do honestly believe that Abraham, with his slow hand speed, crab defense, and plodding style of fighting, would have had any chance against a young Ali?

The problem for Abraham is that with his crab defense, he leaves himself open like a big punching bag for Dirrell’s lightning fast punches. You can’t like that against a speedy Ali-like fighter, not unless you want to lose. The only way to beat fighters with Ali-type skills like Dirrell is to take the fight to them the entire 12 rounds, making them back up for three minutes of every round. Sadly, Abraham doesn’t appear to have the fitness to do that.

Abraham wears out rather quickly if he fights any harder than 10 to 20 seconds at a time and he’s not much good at fighting anywhere close to more than a minute per round. Even in his youth, Abraham was mostly the type of fighter that needed extended rest breaks before he would be capable of throwing punches. In a way, Abraham is like a battery that needs to be recharged constantly and is only good for small periods of times.

Abraham won’t be helping himself by just covering up for longer periods of time. You don’t fight like that against an Ali type of fighter like Dirrell. It just doesn’t work like that. Even the great Sonny Liston knew enough that he had to attack Ali. He couldn’t just cover up in a crap defense.

Abraham is really slow in coming out of his defense. He tips his opponents off when he’s about to attack by lowering his hands and then charging them like a mini bull. It’s pretty obvious to the average person when Abraham is going to do anything, and to a talented fighter like Dirrell, he’s going to know every time when Abraham is about to attack.

As such, I see Abraham getting totally dominated largely because of his crab defense and also because of his inability to fight hard for more than 20 seconds of every round. If this fight was Germany, yeah, Abraham might be able to beat Dirrell by landing only five or six punches during the entire round. That wouldn’t make it right, especially with Dirrell landing 40 50 shots, but I think Abraham would win rounds landing at an anemic rate in Germany. But this fight won’t be in Germany; it’s in the United States. So Abraham will have to come out of his crab defense and actually work if he wants to win tonight’s fight.