36-year-old super middleweight contender Arthur Abraham (45-5, 30 KOs) beat little known bottom dweller Tim-Robin Lihaug (15-2, 8 KOs) by an eighth round stoppage tonight in a showcase/confidence booster type of fight at the Max Schmeling Halle, Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin, Germany.
Abraham knocked Lihaug with a 1-2 combination in the 8th. After Lihaug got back to his feet, Abraham unloaded on him with power shots until the fight was stopped. The fight was stopped at 1:09 of the round.
Besides being hurt, Lihaug looked very tired. He had been gassing out since the fifth.
Abraham had been thoroughly beaten in his last fight by Gilberto Ramirez last April, so his handlers backed him off from high quality opposition and threw in the bottom ranked #15 WBO Lihaug as pretty much the equivalent of a Hors d’oeuvre. The thing of it is, Abraham was getting dominated by the 23-year-old Norwegian Lihaug for the first four rounds of the fight until he got tired and started to give ground. That’s the truly sad thing about the fight. Abraham is at the point where he can’t even dominate a bottom feeder. Yeah, he got the win, but look at how poor Abraham was in the first quarter of the fight. Had this been someone like Callum Smith, George Groves or Ramirez, Abraham would have lost the fight by a landslide decision. Abraham showed no improvement in his game since his loss to Ramirez.
Abraham might get a shot at WBA super middleweight champion Giovanni De Carolis next. De Carolis fought to a controversial 12 round draw in his last fight against Tyron Zeuge. Three years ago, Abraham beat De Carolis by a 12 round decision. However, De Carolis has improved considerably since then, while Abraham has gone downhill. I see De Carolis easily beating Abraham if they fight now unless we get the bizarre scoring like we saw tonight with the De Carolis vs. Zeuge fight.
Abraham’s problem is there isn’t a weak champion holding any of the belts at 168 for him to beat right now. Unless we get the wacky scoring like we saw tonight with De Carolis’ fight against Zeuge, I see Abraham’s days of winning world titles as being effectively over. De Carolis beats Abraham all day every day without any problems. But like I said, it might not matter that De Carolis beats Abraham like a drum if/when they face each other again. Abraham could win a controversial decision if it goes to the scorecards.
