By Kirk Jackson: King Arthur Abraham, Armenian boxing champion based out of Germany has a reputation for being a well liked and a seemingly modest guy. Perhaps an isolated event shouldn’t grant someone access to judge another person’s character, but with the events stemming from Arthur’s recent fight against Dirrell, and a few other things lead me to believe he isn’t the King many make him out to be.

And this King certainly has a jester or two in his court. His brother, Alexander has shown signs of his incompetence during Arthur’s second fight against Edison Miranda back in 2008. After suffering a knockout loss against Arthur, Miranda while being attended to by ring side doctors was attacked by Alexander Abraham. Slurs and other disrespectful remarks were thrown from both sides as a mini riot almost ensued.

Now going back to his last fight against Dirrell and actually this is really a common thing with a majority of his fights, Arthur seemingly complains every time he is hit in the body. He complains to indicate to the referee or whoever is watching he is being hit low in the groin area, phantom low blows. And usually the referee in Germany, where most of Abraham’s fights take place obliges and the body threat to Abraham is basically nullified. He tried to employ that tactic against Dirrell, but it did not work as the American based referee saw through it. As a matter of fact, not much worked for Abraham against Dirrell as the young fighter from Flint, Michigan put on a boxing clinic in front of his hometown crowd.

Andre Dirrell served as a major problem to the King’s reign, as dominated the fight for most of the night. Andre threw effective combinations, outworked and landed more punches, counter punched, moved around the ring, and basically did everything you should do against a fighter like Abraham. He even knocked Arthur down twice even though only one was counted as an official knockdown.

Arthur did come on strong towards the later stages of the fight, but was still on the losing end and desperately needed a knock out if he wanted to maintain his undefeated record. And with that desperation came unwarranted action. In the 11th round, Dirrell slipped on an advertisement label and went down in a neutral corner, after which Abraham wound up with a right hand and clipped him on the chin. It seemed like an intentional hit while Dirrell was down, evidenced by the fact Abraham said in his post fight interview “I hit him with one punch. This should not be a disqualification. This was normal.”

This was an intentional punch, and it’s an illegal, deplorable foul and should not be tolerated. Abraham was getting outclassed in the ring and was losing on all score cards. Whether severe damage was done to Dirrell or not, the disqualification was definitely warranted. In his post fight interview, it seems as there was no remorse from Abraham, his corner, not even his promoter Wilfried Sauerland, who plans on protesting the disqualification. Whether he was in disbelief for suffering his first loss or whatever reasons may be, Arthur Abraham did not do himself any favors and made himself look like the bad guy in this situation.

Now this isn’t to take anything away from Arthur Abraham as a fighter, because despite his constant complaining of phantom low blows, and questionable rough tactics, he is an extremely tough competitor. There aren’t many fighters who continue to fight with a severely broken jaw against a powerful puncher like he did against Edison Miranda in their first fight. Arthur has many of the technicalities of the sport down including a great jab, is quite powerful himself and he is built like an ox.

But it takes more than punching power and skills to be a King. A King must behave himself accordingly and take responsibility for his actions. Even in defeat, a King must lead by example and show everyone why he is admired and respected as a person.