By Jim Dower: After suffering a disappointing 12 round unanimous decision defeat to Carl Froch (27-1, 20 KO’s) in his stage 3 Super Six tournament bout last Saturday night in Helsinki, Finland, former IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (31-2, 25 KO’s) admitted in an interview with the Bild.de, that he may be too small for the super middleweight division.

Abraham said “The others are simply larger. I’m always the smallest.” When asked if he’s considering moving back down to the middleweight division, Abraham said “Yes, about that I need to think.” Abraham says he’s going to stick it out in the tournament rather than quit and will fight Andre Ward next year. When asked if he’ll take that fight, Abraham said “Naturally, I’m a fair sports man.”

The loss to Froch was Abraham’s second defeat in a row. He was beaten by 6’2″ Andre Dirrell in his stage 2 Super Six tourney fight in March, and was dominated in that fight for 10 rounds until fouling Dirrell and getting disqualified in the 11th after hitting the American when he had slipped on the canvas and fallen down. Abraham had problems with the height and reach against both Forch and Dirrell. In his next fight in the tournament, Abraham will be facing 6’1″ Andre Ward, who right now is the tournament leader and the one that many boxing experts feel will be the eventual winner of the tournament.

Abraham has less to worry in that fight as far as being dominated from the outside, because Ward has shown the tendency to fight in close much of the time in his previous Super Six tournament fights, including his fight outside of the tourney last Saturday night against Sakio Bika. However, Ward is still a bigger fighter than the 5’10” Abraham, and he’s likely to get beaten again. That will be Abraham’s third straight loss. if that’s not a signal that he doesn’t have the size for the tournament it’s hard to know what is.

Abraham started off the tournament well with a 12th round knockout win over Jermain Taylor last year in October. However, that was the perfect opponent for him because Taylor came into the fight with a bad chin and serious stamina problems.

Before moving up to super middleweight, Abraham held the IBF middleweight title from 2005 to 2009. He gave it up after successfully defending it 10 times in four years. He moved up in weight because he was having problems making the 160 weight limit. However, he might be willing to move back down in weight if it means that he’ll be able to win back one of the titles.