Abraham to face Stieglitz on March 3rd in rubber match

By Boxing News - 12/09/2013 - Comments

abraham5By Allan Fox: WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz (46-3, 26 KO’s) will be meeting up with his constant foe Arthur Abraham (38-4, 28 KO’s) in a third fight on March 3rd at the Magdeburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany.

The two German based fighters have already fought twice in the past the last year, but without the World Boxing Organization forcing Abraham and Stieglitz to fight tough opposition after their defeats, they keep facing each other. Stieglitz lost his WBO 168 lb. title last year in a 12 round decision defeat to Abraham in August of 2012.

To get a rematch against Abraham, Stieglitz only had to defeat an obscure fighter named Michal Nieroda. Abraham and Stieglitz then fought for a second time in March of this year with Stieglitz stopping Abraham in the 4th. Then all Abraham had to do to get a third fight with Stieglitz was beat Willbeforce Shihepo and Giovanni De Carolis, neither of which are top five contenders in the super middleweight division.

Abraham appeared to lose to Shihepo, but was given a controversial 12 round unanimous decision. In the meantime, Stieglitz defeated two little known contenders named Yuzo Kiyota and Isaac Ekpo to put himself back in the position to defend against Abraham again, who the WBO installed as Stieglitz’s #1 WBO contender despite the fact that Abraham didn’t beat anyone of quality since his defeat to Stieglitz.

Stieglitz’s promoter Ulf Steinforth of SES Boxing won a purse bid last Sunday to promote the fight. He won with a winning bid of $1,541,414.

Stieglitz will likely win the fight again because he seems to know how to beat Abraham now by throwing lost of punches to put him in his shell. Abraham never learned how to throw shots in between his opponents, and he tends to wait until his opposition stops throwing before he starts his own offense. This type of fighting style puts Abraham had a huge disadvantage against guys that throw nonstop punches like Stieglitz.

The WBO needs to make sure that they are ranking better quality contenders at the top of their rankings and not just putting Abraham back at the top off of empty wins. At this point it’s difficult to make an argument that Abraham should be ranked above George Groves and James DeGale or even Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.



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