By Sean McDaniel: The German news organization Bild.de is reporting that former International Boxing Federation middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (31-1, 25 KO’s) will be meeting WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (26-0, 20 KO’s) on August 21st, in the stage 3 part of the Super Six tournament in Froch’s home city of Nottingham, England. Abraham, 30, says “After my defeat in the United States against Andre Dirrell, I would love to fight in Berlin’s O2 World Arena. The Arena is my fortress.” That won’t be happening. The Abraham-Froch bout will take place in Froch’s home city of Nottingham, meaning that Abraham is going to have to be really bringing it in terms of his offensive fire power, because it won’t be easy beating Froch in his home.

Abraham was beaten by Dirrell in an 11th round disqualification on March 27th at the Joe Louis Arena, in Detroit, Michigan. Abraham made the same mistake that he often does, waiting far too long to get his offense started and fell way behind in the fight by the time Abraham began to go after Dirrell in the 10th round. Abraham covered up for the most part, attempting to load up with a handful of shots in every round and missing badly against the elusive Dirrell.

It was a bad strategy on Abraham’s part, because Dirrell is too hard to hit, and Abraham needed to be putting punches together instead of looking for one big shot to take Dirrell out with. Abraham could have been lulled into a false sense of invincibility from his one punch knockout win over Jermain Taylor in the 12th round of his stage 1 bout in October 2009. Abraham also did very little in that fight until the last founds, at which time he began to take the fight to Taylor.

The Bild points out that Abraham has only one of his three first round fights in his home country of Germany. That’s a big disadvantage for Abraham, because Dirrell seemed to feed off his American fans in his fight with Abraham. And the Trent FM Arena, in Nottingham, will be jam packed with Froch fans, many of which will be screaming encouragement for him the whole fight. Abraham is going to have to make the best of the situation by being more offense-minded early in the fight and try to take Froch out.

Beating Froch by decision might not be easy thing in Nottingham. Dirrell, by many accounts, did enough to get the decision, but still ended up losing to Froch. Abraham will have to work a lot harder, throw a lot more punches, and look to take Froch out if he wants to be sure that he gets the win.

Froch could be coming into his fight with Abraham with two wins in the Super Six tournament if Froch defeats his stage 2 opponent Mikkel Kessler on April 24th, in Herning, Denmark. If Froch wins that fight, he’s going to be going into the Abraham fight with a ton of confidence and will be very hard to beat fighting at home in Nottingham. If Abraham thinks he had it bad fighting Dirrell, he’s going to be shocked at how difficult it is to beat Froch, especially in the hostile environment of Nottingham.