By Scott Gilfoid: Former IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (31-2, 25 KO’s) may be kicking himself if he gets beaten by his ill-advised tune-up fight against Stjepan Bozic (24-4, 15 KO’s) on February 12th at the RWE Rhein-Ruhr Sporthalle, Muelheim, Nordhein-Westfalen, Germany.

Abraham, 30, decided to take this tune-up fight to try and give himself a surge of confidence after losing his last two Super Six tournament fights to Andre Dirrell and Carl Froch. The theory is that by beating a scrub fighter, Abraham will then pick up enough confidence to beat unbeaten WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (23-0, 13 KO’s) in their Semifinal bout in May of this year.

Things rarely work that way in real life. Instead of this worthless tune-up fight helping Abraham get the confidence needed to beat Ward, it’s going to put him at risk of getting beaten by this Bozic guy, and that in turn will make things even worse for him as he enters the fight with Ward.

Even if Abraham beats Bozic, he might end up struggling against him and that won’t help his confidence any. He’s going to be expected to get rid of Bozic early, as he was already stopped in the 6th round by super middleweight contender Dimitri Sartison in November 2009. If Abraham doesn’t at least do that good against Bozic, this is going to be like a minor defeat for him.

And even if Abraham easily beats Bozic, he’s going to be in shock when he faces Ward and sees how much better he is compared to Bozic. Abraham was much better off going from his fights with Jermain Tayor, Dirrell and Froch straight into the Ward fight rather than taking this risky, useless fight against Bozic. Nothing good can come of this fight for Abraham.