By Scott Gilfoid: Once beaten Andre Dirrell (18-1, 13 KO’s) has been busy preparing for his March 27th bout against Arthur Abraham (31-0, 25 KO’s) and has been sparring with Victor Oganov, a fighter built a lot like Abraham and who has similar hand speed. Dirrell, 26, will have the home field advantage in the bout against Abraham, as the fight will be taking place at the Joe Louis Arena, in Detroit, Michigan, which isn’t far from Dirrell’s home of Flint, Michigan.

Dirrell is looking for great things in the super middleweight division and Abraham is standing in his path. Some of the boxing experts have been picking Abraham to beat Dirrell. For them, they saw Abraham’s 12th round knockout win over Jermain Taylor in his first fight in the Super Six tournament last October as evidence that Abraham will have too much power for Dirrell.

Instead of seeing the whole picture of Abraham, seeing him as a crude slugger with good but not great power, some of the experts are now picking Abraham to beat Dirrell and eventually win the Super Six tournament. I have to say that I don’t see Abraham getting anywhere close to beating Dirrell on the 27th. In fact, I don’t see Abraham being able to lay so much as a glove on Dirrell.

For that to happen, it would require for Abraham to have some hand speed, something that he’s severely lacking in. You don’t hit Dirrell unless you have hand speed, and that’s just the way it is. Carl Froch was only able to land any punches on Dirrell when he had a hold of him in a clinch.

Hopefully, Abraham won’t be looking to hold and hit, because I think it will be bad for him if he does. In the United States, the referees are very strict about holding and hitting, throwing rabbit punches and body slamming opponents on the canvas. I can’t see Dirrell having any problems whatsoever with any of those issues happening against Abraham, but if they do, I expect the referee to penalize the infraction as soon as it takes place.

Abraham is fighting for one of the few times out of Germany, and this is going to be a very new experience for him. Abraham hasn’t had to really fight in front of a hostile crowd before because the handful of times that he has fought out of Germany, it’s been in locations where the crowd was docile for the most part and not booing him a great deal. I expect the huge Joe Louis will make things very unpleasant for Abraham, and I think it’s going to mess with him mentally.

Abraham says it won’t bother him, but he can’t know how he’ll react because he hasn’t ever had to face an angry crowd before. At the same time, Dirrell will be fighting with even more motivation because the fans will be cheering his every move and giving him a ton of support. Abraham is basically going to be entering the lion’s den and I don’t see him being ready for it.