By Scott Gilfoid: You’ve heard the saying “speed kills”? Well, in this case it won’t kill, but will make former IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham one miserable human being on March 27th, at the Joe Louis Arena, in Detroit, Michigan. The talented Andre Dirrell, the fastest fighter in the Super Six tournament, is going to unleash his speed on Abraham beat the stuffing out of him on Showtime. Abraham hasn’t yet experienced what it feels like to lose yet, but he’s going to get to know it really well on the 27th, because I see Abraham eating a lot of leather on that night and experiencing a lot of pain.
The pain will come in two waves – one form the pain of getting beaten up round after round until the 12th, and the second coming from the pain of embarrassment as Dirrell totally dominates Abraham in front of a huge sold out arena and in front of a worldwide audience. It’s going to be especially bad because Abraham’s fans at home in Germany will no doubt be watching the right and cringing with each blow that Abraham gets hammered with during the fight. Losing isn’t fun, but it’s part of boxing. Dirrell lost in his last fight, suffering a controversial 12 round split decision to Carl Froch last October in the first fight of the Super Six tournament. Now it’s Abraham’s turn.
Abraham has power, quite a bit of it. If Dirrell was to stand glued to one spot in the ring on March 27th, I would guess that Abraham would have a good chance of knocking Dirrell out or least beating him up a little. I don’t know that Dirrell wouldn’t rise up and obliterate Abraham with a volley of lighting fast shots that Abraham would never see due to the speed of the punches.
But who needs to fight like a primitive caveman when you have the speed that Dirrell possesses? It’s much easier to move a little laterally, which is what suspect Dirrell will do, and fire off punches while moving. Dirrell knows now that he can fight a full 12 rounds without getting tired. He didn’t know that before his fight with Froch. But once the fight got to the 10th round, and Dirrell realized that he wasn’t tired, he started lighting Froch up with huge shots like it was no tomorrow. Dirrell even had Froch staggered a couple of times, and looking to hold on for dear life to keep Dirrell from following up with any additional shots.
Dirrell’s hand speed is going to be the key to victory. Abraham is going to be chasing him to try and corner Dirrell so that he can effectively mug him in a corner or against the ropes. In the open ring, Abraham has no chance whatsoever. He’ll be far too slow and unable to make constant with Dirrell with his crude attacks. Abraham might think he’s going to have success against Dirrell in the middle of the ring like he’s done in the past against his opponents in Germany.
That won’t be happening in this case though. Dirrell will be too fast, and will be feeding Abraham with left hands and right hooks to the head as Abraham madly rushes him trying to make contact. The only chance that Abraham will have is if he can pin Dirrell to the ropes or in a corner and try to land something big while Dirrell has his back up against the ropes. That won’t happen either. Dirrell will be too quick to be trapped on the ropes, and Abraham will find himself missing when he throws his badly telegraphed shots.
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