By Scott Gilfoid: This Saturday’s bout between super middleweights Andre Dirrell (18-1, 13 KO’s) and former IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (31-0, 25 KO’s) couldn’t have any more different fighters going up against other than them. Abraham is a slow, methodical fighter, who is more inclined to win his fights by throwing massive power shots and not working all that hard in doing so. Dirrell, 26, is a hard worker, with blazing fast hand speed, incredible offensive and defensive weapons that the boxing world hasn’t seen in perhaps a decade or more. Abraham, 30, is going into this Saturday’s bout thinking knockout.

However, Dirrell isn’t overawed by Abraham’s power, saying in an article at the Detroit Free Press “Abraham is a power puncher. But I’ve fought a million guys like him. A boxer like me can easily adapt to a puncher. He’ll have to figure me out. I’m fast and elusive, and I’ve got sneaky power. I can punch from any angle.” Dirrell is right. Abraham’s slugging style of fighting is very common in the United States, as there are many fighters, who aren’t blessed with hand speed just like Abraham, that frequent the super middleweight division.

One of those fighters is the hard hitting Victor Oganov, a fighter that Dirrell easily defeated in the past by a 6th round TKO. Oganov, 5’9”, has similar size compared to the 5’10” Abraham, and has the same plodding style of fighting. Both appear to hit about the same in terms of power. Dirrell was much too big, too fast and too talented for Oganov to deal with.

I expect the same thing to happen when Dirrell takes on the equally short and slow Abraham this Saturday night. Dirrell is a fighter who can do a bit of everything. He can slug when he wants to, and has power that may not be as good as Abraham’s, but it’s so close that there’s not much of a difference between them that anyone could ever notice. However, Dirrell has superb boxing skills that are second to none.

Abraham can’t turn on his boxing skills in a fight, because he’s basically a slugger through and through. Because of his limited height and slow hand speed, Abraham can’t take command of a fight with his boxing skills. He just doesn’t have the tools like Dirrell to do the job. As such, when things start to go badly for Abraham this Saturday night at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan, Abraham won’t have a plan ‘B’ to fall back on. He won’t be able to just start boxing Dirrell, because he won’t have the physical skills and talent to make that happen.

Basically, Abraham will live and die by the knockout. If he can’t knock Dirrell out, which is probably going to be the case, he’s going to end up getting badly out-boxed and made to look like a limited slugger. I think it’s going to be so patently one-sided that boxing fans will lose interest in watching it after awhile. I love boxing, and will enjoy every moment of seeing Dirrell’s incredible mastery of Abraham.

This is like a throwback fight from the early 70s when you had a young, talented Muhammad Ali facing a slower, shorter Joe Frazier. Dirrell is like a young Ali, with incredible talent that most boxing fighters can only dream of.