Robert Stieglitz v @ArthurAbraham at today's final presser: both confident to end their trilogy as the winner #boxing pic.twitter.com/2hSVT5QtvN

— Team Sauerland (@TeamSauerland) February 25, 2014

By Allan Fox: WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz (46-3, 26 KO’s) and Arthur Abraham (38-4, 28 KO’s) will be meeting up for the third and hopefully the final time this Saturday night at the GETEC Arena, Magdeburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany. The two German based fighters have worked it out to where they’ve been able to keep facing each other with repeated rematches by taking weak opponents in between their fights. Stieglitz would have lost his WBO title long ago had he been forced to fight his No.1 challenger George Groves instead of the little known challengers Yuzo Kiyota and Isaac Ekpo.

Abraham,34, was beaten by Stieglitz last year in March in losing by a 4th round TKO in their 2nd fight. Abraham then was given a controversial decision in his next fight against Willbeforce Shihepo in Germany. Very few fans felt that Abraham should have been given a decision against Shihepo in their fight in Germany. In his last fight, Abraham beat a little known fringe contender named Giovanni De Carolis.

Two years ago Abraham, then the WBO 168 lb champion, defeated Stieglitz by a 12 round decision in their first fight in August of 2012. Abraham used his superior power to dominate the lighter punching Stieglitz to earn a decision. In their rematch last year, Stieglitz changed things up by coming up with the plan to throw nonstop punches to overwhelm Abraham’s clam-shell defense, and worked perfectly for Stieglitz. Abraham covered up for 4 rounds while Stieglitz threw a blizzard of punches for 3 minutes of every round. By the time the 4th round was about to start, Abraham’s right eye was too swollen for him to continue.

Stieglitz will likely use the same battle tactics this Saturday as he did in their 2nd fight, because it’s probably the only way he can beat Abraham. For some reason Abraham’s German trainer hasn’t taught him to throw punches in between the shots of his opponents. Abraham is stuck with the same had habit he had when he turned pro where he waits for his opponents to stop throwing their shots before he lets go with his own punches. In normal situations, that fight strategy works, but against a smart fighter like Stieglitz, he’s found a way to get around that by throwing punches without stop for three minutes of every round. Abraham looked like a sparring partner in their last fight with the way he just stood in front of Stieglitz covering up without throwing anything back at him for the first three rounds.

The World Boxing Organization needs to do a far better job of making the WBO champion Stieglitz fight better opposition in between his rematches with Abraham, because fighting the likes of Yuzo Kiyota and Isaac Ekpo makes it too easy for Stieglitz to keep fighting Abraham in rematch after rematch without Stieglitz having to face someone that’s actually good in between those rematches. At the same time, the WBO needs to make the Abraham fight for the right to face Stieglitz each time by having him face someone good in an eliminator bout. Abraham should have had to face James DeGale or George Groves before getting a third fight against Stieglitz instead of Willbeforce Shihepo and Giovanni De Carolis.