By Scott Gilfoid: In looking at Arthur Abraham (31-0, 25 KO’s) and Andre Dirrell (18-1, 13 KO’s) in their recent photos at the media day, the size differences between the two fighters is fairly dramatic. Abraham looks practically teeny standing next to the 6’2” Dirrell and I think there could be some problems for Abraham to land his shots.

What jumped out at me in looking at the photos is not only how short Abraham is as a fighter, but the size of his head compared to Dirrell.

Abraham’s head looks massive, much bigger than Dirrell’s. A lot of Abraham’s height is in head size rather than torso and legs. This could be an important factor because of a couple of things. First of all, Abraham won’t have the arm length and height to compete with the taller, longer-armed Dirrell. And second of all, Abraham’s large head will present a big target for Dirrell’s punches.

When you have a fighter with a big head it makes it easy for a fighter to have a nice target for their punches. I know Abraham is good at blocking punches with his high Joshua Clottey-like clam defense, but Abraham won’t be able to block all the incoming fire aimed at his somewhat large head. I seen some big heads before, but Abraham’s head looks gigantic next to Dirrell and seems to take a fairly area.

As for as the height issues go, Abraham is going to have to find a way to get in close enough for him to land his shorter punches. He doesn’t have the arm length to hit Dirrell when the American is standing on the outside. This means that Abraham will have to take chances by coming at Dirrell to try and land his shots. Abraham doesn’t help himself any by throwing his wide hooks.

He’s going to have to change that before Saturday night or else he’ll have even more problems getting his punches in. By rushing Dirrell and throwing wide hooks as he’s running forward, Abraham is going to be missing and getting hit with straight punches down the middle. The only way Abraham is going to have any success landing his shots while running at Dirrell is if Andre decides to stand in one place and do nothing at all.

If that’s the case, then I think Abraham will do well. The problem is Dirrell doesn’t just stand there like a lot of Abraham’s past opponents have done against him just letting him land his punches. Dirrell is a modern fighter and will his legs to move out of the way of Abraham when he comes at him. I think this going to be shooting ducks.

Abraham is going to try his primitive fighting style against Dirrell and end up getting hammered over and over again without stop. Abraham’s short wide punches will hit nothing but air. This is in turn will cause him to lose his temper most likely and probably start to try and rough Dirrell up. That won’t work either. Dirrell will be ready for all of Abraham’s tricks, especially after fighting WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch in his last fight. Froch turned the fight physical in the 5th round when he started fouling Dirrell. Froch had some success, but only because the referee allowed him to.