By Dam Ambrose: WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (35-3, 27 KO’s) is starting in where he left off when he held the IBF middleweight crown by taking on a soft opponent for his first defense of belt against #12 Mehdi Bouadla (26-4, 11 KO’s) on December 15th at the Arena Nuremberg in Nuremberg, Germany.

Choosing the 5’9″ Bouadla is pretty much choosing from the bottom of the WBC pack despite there being a few guys ranked below him. Bouadla is about as soft as you can get in the division, as he’s never really beaten anyone that you can call good that you make sense out of him being ranked at all in the top 15 by the World Boxing Organization’s rankings.

The one time that Bouadla fought a top tier opponent was against Mikkel Kessler last year in June, and Bouadla was toyed with and destroyed in six easy rounds. Why the WBO still has him ranked after that fight is a mystery.

Abraham didn’t go out of his way to fight good opponents when he was the IBF middleweight champion 2005 to 2009, and it would be sad if that’s where he’s taking the WBO belt now that he’s got it in his possession. As a middleweight, Abraham never fought Kelly Pavlik, Felix Sturm, or Jermain Taylor. Abraham did eventually fight Taylor 2 years after he had lost his titles to Pavlik in a knockout loss, but Taylor wasn’t the same fighter he once was before his loss to Pavlik.

Abraham will easily beat Bouadla. There’s not much guess work involved with that. He or his promoters have selected Bouadla from near the bottom of the top 15, and it’s going to be an easy fight for Abraham. The hope is that this doesn’t become the norm for Abraham because boxing fans want to see him fight the guys at 168, such as George Groves, Kessler, Pavlik, James DeGale, Adonis Stevenson, and Sakio Bika instead of fighting guys at the very bottom of the pack like Bouadla.