By Scott Gilfoid: #4 WBO Paul Smith (35-5, 20 KOs) seems to think he narrowly lost to WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (42-4, 28 KOs) in their fight last Saturday night at the O2 World Arena in Berlin, Germany.
Smith lost the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores of 116-112, 117-111 and 117-111. However, Smith believes that the fight was level after six rounds, and that he won the 11th and 12th rounds. Smith also thinks that the 10th round was a tossup round that could have gone either way. I’m really not surprised that Smith thinks the fight was close, because he also thinks he won the first Abraham-Smith fight last year, and I saw that as another clear win for Abraham.
As such, Smith thinks that he won at least five of the twelve rounds. With Smith saying that the 10th was a close round, it suggests that he could see the fight being scored a 12 round draw instead of a win for Abraham.
After six [rounds] it was three each,” Smith said via Skysports.com. “Round 10 was very close but I won 11 and 12.”
I don’t how Smith could see himself winning five rounds. I saw the same fighter and I only had Smith winning two rounds of the fight. I thought he fought well enough to win the 6th and 11th rounds, but definitely none of the others. They were very, very one-sided rounds with Abraham establishing clearly that he was the better fighter of the two.
Abraham hurt Smith in the 4th round with a right hand head shot that had Smith’s legs gone for a brief moment. Smith retreated and took a lot of head shots.
One of Smith’s biggest problems in the fight, besides his lack of power and hand speed, was the way he kept retreating to the ropes and letting Abraham drill him with punches.
I don’t know why Smith repeatedly did this, because he gave the rounds away each time he did this. Many of the rounds were close until Smith would retreat to the ropes, where he’d get hit by a flurry of head shots from Abraham. Smith would try to cover up, but Abraham would throw a fast flurry of head shots that would often slice through the guard of Smith.
At some point, Smith’s trainer Joe Gallagher should have read him the riot act and told him to stay off the ropes, because that’s where Smith was giving up the rounds. I mean, it was real amateurish stuff by Smith, and you have to wonder how he could have gone this far in his boxing career without learning that it’s not a wise thing for him to stand with his back against the ropes.
“It was like punching a brick wall, he’s got a head like a bowling ball. He’s not the best looking bloke – he looks tough and rugged – and had a poker face when I hurt him,” Smith said about Abraham. “Then he caught me in the seventh and hurt me. He won the seventh, eighth and ninth and I remember Joe Gallagher telling me that I needed 10, 11 and 12 to get anything out of the fight.”
Gallagher was correct in telling Smith he needed to win the last three rounds of the fight, but he should have been telling him that he needed knockdowns in those rounds to pull out the fight, because I had Smith trailing by eight rounds to one going into the tenth. It was totally one-sided at that point, but unfortunately for Smith, he only captured the 11th while losing the 10th and 12th rounds handily.
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