By Eric Thomas: Arthur Abraham (34-3, 27 KO’s) is in a very good position to win on Saturday night against WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz (42-2, 23 KO’s) O2 World Arena, Kreuzberg, Berlin, Germany. What gives the 32-year-old Abraham such a good chance of winning this fight is his big power and ability to apply pressure on his opponent.

Stieglitz hasn’t faced a good pressure fighter since he was stopped in the 8th round by Librado Andrade in 2008. Stieglitz has since faced a lot of good fighters, but no one with big power or the ability to force an opponent to fight hard. The match-making that’s been done for Stieglitz by his promoters since the Andrade fight has been nothing short of genius. They’ve take a fighter that likely would have been exposed many times if he had fought someone good and has kept Stieglitz winning in his last 11 fights since the loss to Andrade. During that time Steiglitz hasn’t faced anyone even close to being remotely as good as Abraham. That’s good matchmaking on Stieglitz’s promoters part, but all good things come to an end. On Saturday night, Stieglitz will finally be facing a really good fighter in Abraham and it’s likely that he’ll fall short of the mark due to Abraham’s big power.

Abraham has had his problems in the past three years with losses to Carl Froch, Andre Ward and Andre Dirrell. However, those guys were taller than both Stieglitz and Abraham, and were excellent boxers. They didn’t have to get close to Abraham the way that Stieglitz will because they had such long arms that it kept Abraham bottled up on the outside unable to land his big power punches near the ends of each round.

Stieglitz, 5’11”, doesn’t have the size to keep Abraham on the outside and unable to land his punches. Stieglitz will no doubt try and fight in a hit and run style against Abraham, but he’s going to have problems because Abraham will be able to land his big shots against Stieglitz because his reach won’t be long enough to keep Abraham out of reach on the outside.