By Scott Gilfoid: Sky Sports commentator Johnny Nelson thinks that #4 WBO Paul Smith (35-4, 20 KOs) has a real chance of pulling off an upset this Saturday night against the big-hitting WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (41-4, 28 KOs) in their fight on February 21st at the O2 World Arena, Kreuzberg, in Berlin, Germany.
The Abraham-Smith II fight is a rematch that was brought about by the constant bellyaching done by Smith and his fans about the outcome of the previous fight between Smith and Abraham.
Smith thought he won the fight, as did many of his loyal boxing fans. However, a lot of the neutral fans who had no dog in the hunt, simply saw Smith getting beaten and they see the rematch as pointless and a big waste of time.
“It’s going to be a tough ask for Paul. I would favor Abraham to pull off the win, but Paul has shown me that he can pull the win out of the bag,” Nelson said via Skysports.com.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6baFQTQVNKo
Obviously, Nelson is on the side of the fans who saw Smith as having won the previous encounter with Abraham, so it’s not surprising that he’s picking him to win this time around.
I honestly didn’t see anything from Smith from his previous fight with Abraham that suggests that he should have gotten the nod by the judges. The only thing I saw was Smith getting outworked, out-punched and out-classed by Abraham for 12 long rounds. I mean, Abraham beat Smith in every facet of the game and there was no question who the better fighter was of the two.
Abraham landed the far harder blows and was nailing Smith with head shots at will in the fight. Yeah, Smith landed some shots when Abraham would rest, but I didn’t see those weaker shots as being near enough for him to win rounds against Abraham.
This is probably Smith’s last chance for getting a title shot against Abraham. If Smith loses yet again, no amount of yapping and complaining about the decision is going to get Smith a third straight fight.
Even if Abraham was in favor of taking a third straight bout against Smith in order to milk his title, I can’t see the World Boxing Organization sanctioning the fight, because they have to let other guys get a chance at fighting for the belt. I mean, it would look really bad with Smith losing, then complaining like mad, and then getting another fight against Abraham.
Abraham is talking about wanting to fight Felix Sturm in his next fight after Smith. Abraham wants to get some good cash for that fight, and he can’t be held back fighting Smith over and over again for the remainder of his career. Abraham has to break the pattern and move forward instead of getting stuck beating the same guy repeatedly and getting stuck in that cycle.
I do believe that Abraham is going to take the judges out of the equation on Saturday night by him knocking Smith out so that there won’t be any chance that he starts complaining after the fight that he was robbed.
As far as Nelson thinking that Smith will win goes, I see Nelson coming up wrong with his prediction. I don’t think this will even be competitive because Abraham is going to want to blast Smith around the ring and put him in his place.
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