By Scott Gilfoid: Andre Dirrell (18-1, 13 KO’s) believes that his superior hand speed with be the key to victory for him on Saturday night against undefeated Arthur Abraham (31-0, 25 KO’s) in their Super Six boxing tournament fight at the Joe Louis Arena, in Detroit, Michigan. In an article at Boxing Fanhouse, Dirrell says “Arthur Abraham’s a strong guy, but I think he’ll have a problem with boxers. I don’t think he will be able to match my hand speed or my foot movement.” Yes, I agree with Mr. Dirrell. Abraham is as slow molasses, one of the slowest super middleweights I’ve seen in a long time.

Abraham doesn’t have the hand speed or the foot movement to compete with a world class athlete like Dirrell. I don’t see the judges being kind to Abraham and letting him when rounds on the cheap by throwing a dozen punches in the last seconds of the round to steal them. That won’t happen in the U.S. Over here, Abraham, if he wants to win the fight, is going to have to work his backside off by actually getting it in gear, moving around the ring and throwing some punches instead of imitating Joshua Clottey for the better part of every round.

In every fight I watch of Abraham, he does the exact same thing. He just covers up, takes shots and waits until the end of the round to try and steal it. He has scored a lot of knockouts among his 31 victories, I’ll give him that, but against who? Besides Jermain Taylor, most of them are fringe contenders or 2nd tier fighters. I only see a couple of Abraham’s wins coming against decent middleweights.

For me, the only quality win among Abraham’s 31 victories is his 12th round knockout win over Taylor last year, and even that fight is tainted in my eyes because Taylor had been knocked out in the 12th round in his prior fight by Carl Froch in April. Taylor may not have been damaged goods, but it certainly couldn’t have helped him any being knocked out badly only six months prior to fighting Abraham.

Dirrell has the much better hand speed, defense and ring movement in this fight. Let me say this: Abraham is going to be hitting a lot air on Saturday night, and he better get used to because that’s what he’s going to be dealing with. If I was Abraham, I’d focus on keeping it clean, keeping my punches straight, staying composed and trying not to load up with everything. If Abraham fights like an ape, he’s going to get badly outclassed by Dirrell.

Abraham has got to try and fight in a more professional manner, resisting his urges to throw looping shots, and making sure he doesn’t bum rush Dirrell like he does with all his opponents. Believe me, bum rushing Dirrell at a gallop won’t work for him. If he wants to get ripped apart all night long, then so be it, bum rush. But I wouldn’t advise for him to do that.

I can’t help seeing how flawed this guys and thinking how easy of a fight Dirrell is going to have against him. If I was Abraham’s trainer, there’s so many areas that I would need to change before I could even think about him being competitive against Dirrell. There’s just too many flaws there. I’m surprised and frankly disappointed that Abraham’s German handlers didn’t fix all mistakes that Abraham makes in the ring.

I guess they ignored them, because he was beating the fodder that was being served up to him all these years. The middleweight division has been wretched for the past five years with Bernard Hopkins, and we’ve had a lack of talent. But that’s no excuse for not teaching Abraham to fight in a more polished manner. It’s like the guy has a walking hit me sign pasted to his head. He’s just so wide open for everything that Dirrell is going to be throwing at him on Saturday nights.