(Photo Credit: Sebastian Heger) By Scott Gilfoid: Paul Smith (35-3, 20 KO) believes all he needs to do is get the game plan right for him to defeat WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (40-4, 28 KOs) tonight in their fight at the Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.
Smith believes that he can overcome the 34-year-old Abraham’s talent and power advantage simply by having the perfect game plan. The guys that have given Abraham problems in the past were ones with a high workrate, a good job, great stamina, and excellent boxing skills.
Smith, I hate to say it, falls short in pretty much all of those categories. He doesn’t have a high work rate, his stamina isn’t great, his jab is a limp one, and his boxing skills less than remarkable. I’d say that Smith’s chances of beating Abraham are very, very slim event Abraham is clearly the weak link among the champions.
“I am going to fight for it in a fight that I can win and I know that if I get this game plan right that I am going to win,” Smith said via Ringnews24.com. “I am 100 per cent the underdog and I know I am. But that is what I want. I wouldn’t have it any other way. It is something that is a fact; he is a World champion and I am a challenger. Nine times out of ten the challenger is going to be the underdog anyway, but a challenger who has never fought for a World title before against somebody who has had 19 World title fights.”
Blah-blah-blah; Smith has twisted the logic around of him being an underdog and made it out like it’s an advantage for him. He’s got a million ideas for why he’s going to be competitive in this fight, but his past history says otherwise.
When you’re analyzing a fight, you only have the past history of a fighter to go on in order to estimate whether they have a chance or not, and with Smith, he just doesn’t have the history for him to be competitive with a talent like Abraham.
Yeah, Abraham is probably around the 10th best fighter in the division, and he probably doesn’t rate to be a title holder, but he’s still head’s and shoulders above Smith. That’s kind of the way it is. I rate Anthony Dirrell, Andre Dirrell, Andre Ward, Gilberto Ramirez, Carl Froch, Mikkel Kessler, James DeGale, Sakio Bika, and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr as being better fighters than Abraham.
Abraham defeated Nikola Sjekloca by a 12 round decision in his last fight in May. Abraham looked just good enough to beat Sjekloca, who’d recently been defeated by Sakio Bika. What Abraham was doing defending his title against a guy who’d recently been beaten is anyone’s guess? But then again, Abraham picked Smith out of the pack as another easy mark, so that kind of gives you an indication of the kind of champion Abraham is. He’s taking nothing but soft jobs for his voluntary title defenses, and then when he defends against his mandatory challenger, he keeps fighting Robert Stieglitz.
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