Abraham and Stieglitz square off on July 18th

By Boxing News - 05/21/2015 - Comments

By Scott Gilfoid: WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (42-4, 28 KOs) will continue with his long series of fights against Robert Stieglitz (47-4-1, 27 KOs) when the two of them face each other for the 4th, and not likely the final time, two months from now on July 18th at the Gerry Weber Stadium, in Halle, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

The 35-year-old Abraham must be starting to get a little self-conscious about the never-ending fights against the German based 33-year-old Stieglitz because he’s talking about wanting to end the series on July 18th, although why he would want to do that is unclear.

Abraham is making good money in fighting Stieglitz over and over again, and he doesn’t have to risk his title against quality super middleweights that would likely beat him. The World Boxing Organization is making it easy for Abraham to continue the series against Stieglitz by giving him high rankings with their organization. Stieglitz hasn’t beaten anyone solid, yet the WBO has him ranked #1.

“Four fights with Robert is enough for me,’’ Abraham said. ‘’Of course victory is always the most important thing but, on July 18, I don’t just want to win; I want to win decisively and prove once and for all that I am the better man.’’

Abraham isn’t the one that makes his fights. That’s his promoter’s job. You can expect more fights between Abraham and Stieglitz in the future no matter which of them emerges as the winner of their fight on July 18th. It’s dictated by what the German fans want to see. Apparently, a lot of fans in Germany are interested in seeing Abraham fight Stieglitz for some reason rather than having Abraham fight some of the other top contenders in the division like James DeGale, George Groves, and Gilberto Ramirez. Even if Abraham knocks Stieglitz out in this fight, we’re probably going to continue to see rematches between these two fighters far into the future, even when eventually Abraham is no longer the champion.

Thus far, Abraham has beaten Stieglitz two out of three times they’ve fought. Abraham won the first fight, lost the second, and then won the third. They started the series in 2012, and who knows what year they’ll finally end it. For some boxing fans, it looks peculiar the way that Abraham keeps fighting Stiegltiz over and over again. They wonder why they keep fighting and why no one good is getting a shot in between. For example, Abraham just finished fighting fringe contender Paul Smith twice in a row in title defenses. Smith was originally just a voluntary defense, but the WBO let Abraham fight Smith a second time after he beat him. Didn’t make any sense, but you can’t blame Abraham for taking a second easy fight.

It’ll be really interesting to see how long it takes before Abraham and Stieglitz announce their fifth fight together after this one on July 18th. After all these fights, it’s no longer interesting to me to see them. It’s more interesting to see how they keep facing each other, and no one of quality gets a shot at the WBO belt in between their fights.



Comments are closed.