By Jason Kim: WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal thinks unbeaten World Boxing Association (WBA) super middleweight champion Andre Ward (23-0, 13 KO’s) will beat former IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (31-2, 25 KO’s) in their Super Six tourney semifinals next year. The date and the month have yet to be determined for this fight, because there’s talk of Abraham fighting a tune-up bout beforehand in February next year.

Pascal, speaking to eastsideboxing.com’s On the Ropes Boxing Radio program, said “That’s going to be an interesting match-up, but I think that Andre Ward is too smart, too fast and too skilled for Arthur Abraham and he should win this one.”

Pascal is probably right about that, but it probably won’t have anything to do with Ward being too smart for Abraham. It will likely come down to Ward’s greater youth, stamina and defensive ability rather than being the smarter fighter. Abraham is plenty smart, but just seems to have a problem with his batteries. He’s not able to summon up the energy to fight hard for the entire fight and gives away almost every round by not throwing enough punches. Abraham is fine when he’s facing someone that stands in their track directly in front of him, but against a fighter that can retreat a little when Abraham winds up on his big shots, he’s going to have problems.

Ward is that type of fighter. He’s not going to let Abraham tee off with his shots all night long like a lot of Abraham’s opponents have done in the past. However, Abraham does have a chance if Ward makes the mistake of trying to trade with him like he did against his last opponent Sakio Bika. Ward seemed to fight Bika’s fight last time out and tried to brawl with him all fight long instead of using his boxing ability to jab and box Bika from the outside the way that Joe Calzaghe and Lucian Bute had done. Ward can’t afford to get into a trading war with Abraham because he punches too hard and will have the chance to hurt Ward if he’s able to land his big shots all night long the way that Bika was able to.