By Chris Williams: I’ve seen the replay of Arthur Abraham’s illegal knockout blow in the 11th round against Andre Dirrell numerous times, and I don’t understand how Abraham couldn’t have known that Dirrell was down when he had time enough to wind up with a golf swing punch and send him into the stratosphere. This is something that your mind works through when you’re deciding what kind of punch to throw at a fighter. In seeing how Abraham was throwing overhand rights moments before landing the illegal blow and then suddenly opting for a golf swing punch after Dirrell hit the canvas, it makes me think that Abraham totally knew what he was doing when he let loose with that crunching punch.

I don’t care if Dirrell was faking or not after getting hit. The thing that matters to me is that Abraham looked to have intentionally wound up with that punch and let it fly, even though Dirrell was down on the canvas and unable to do much to protect himself. Dirrell never even tried to put up his guard before being creamed by Abraham. That alone should have been a tip for Abraham to hold off on his big golf swing.

Maybe the frustration of not being able to catch up to Dirrell all these rounds finally got to Abraham at that exact moment causing him to want to take full advantage of a free opportunity to land one when Dirrell couldn’t do anything about it. Before this fight took place, I would never believe that Abraham was capable of such a thing.

He’s always come across as one of the nicest guys in the Super Six tourney. But in looking at Abraham throwing not an overhand right at Dirrell while he was down, but rather an underhand right, it looked like he knew what he was doing. The punch resembled a person throwing a bowling ball, because he really had to throw it low to get it to land.

I know some people might think that punching is an unconscious thing, especially for professional boxers. However, the brain has to be able to register when someone is down and when someone is standing up. I’ve been in fights myself where my opponent went down, and I knew it immediately. It didn’t take someone else to point that out to me for me to realize what actually happened. This is why I don’t understand how Abraham couldn’t just come clean and admit what he did was wrong.

I guess that’s expecting too much of a fighter. After all, he would be publically shamed if he admitted wrong, but at least people would respect him for taking responsibility for what had happened. Instead, we got Abraham blaming the victim, calling Dirrell “a good actor.” That shows no remorse on Abraham’s part. He doesn’t show any guilt for what he did by saying that. Maybe Abraham feels bad now after having seen the replay a dozen or more times, but it’s sad that he hasn’t come forward and made a comment about it to apologize to Dirrell.