By Jim Dower: Photo credit: Tom Casino/Showtime – Arthur Abraham (32-3, 26 KO’s) was sadly eliminated from the Super Six tournament on Saturday night when he failed to muster up much of an offensive effort against WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (24-0, 13 KO’s) in a one-sided 12 round decision loss for Abraham in Carson, California. For Abraham, this was his third defeat in the tournament and it sends him home to Germany in bad shape having been humiliated more or less in his three losses.

The final judges’ scores reflected how one-sided the fight was with Ward winning by the scores 118-110, 118-110 and 118-111. Abraham had his moments in the fight, especially in the first three rounds when he came storming out of the blocks and was able to land some nice shots as he pressured Ward. Unfortunately, Abraham couldn’t keep up the fast pace and seem to lose strength beginning in the 4th. Instead of focusing on throwing combinations, Abraham begin to wind up with one shot at a time trying to knock Ward out with one shot from rounds four through twelve.

This is how Abraham had fought in his other Super Six tournament losses and it wasn’t working for him. He was supposed to have changed his style for this fight to focus more on throwing combinations. He did do this for the first three rounds, but then lost his way after that and fell back into his old fighting style of looking to score a knockout with one punch. With Abraham throwing only wild looping shots, Ward was able to figure him out and take control over the fight and make Abraham miss with his shots. In the meantime, Ward landed combinations to the head of Abraham and punished him badly during the last eight rounds of the fight. Ward really didn’t have to make too many adjustments in the fight, because Abraham made it easy for him when he stopped throwing combinations. Ward was able to pick off or get out of the way of Abraham’s single shots and then coast to an easy decision.

With this loss, Abraham has a big decision to make about what to do with the remainder of his career. He doesn’t seem to have the ability to fight at super middleweight and is going to need to make a decision about what he wants to do with his career. At 5’10”, Abraham is probably too small for light heavyweight, but at the same time, he can’t make 160 anymore without draining himself making weight.