By Juan Carlos Castillo: The idea of having a tournament this year featuring one of the most competitive division of the higher weight classes is something that will help casual and hardcore boxing fans to raise their expectations in clashes that promises fireworks and also to exploit talents coming from very good fighters.
The first fight of the Tournament features former WBC Middleweight Champion Jermain Taylor (28-3, 17 KO’s) against undefeated and former IBF Middleweight Champion King Arthur Abraham (30-0, 24KO’s). On one hand, we have Taylor, a fighter with very good boxing skills, a pretty good jab, and a fighter to knows how to keep distance from his opponent, that, until he runs out of gas in the late rounds. That’s the biggest problem in Taylor’s arsenal, despite his not so good defense as he takes a lot of good shots evidenced in the Pavlik fights, and also in his last one against WBC Champion Carl Froch..
On the other hand, King Arthur Abraham, is well-known for his tight defense, big punching power and also, his good stamina. While Abraham is a slow started that’s not a big problem, when you face a fighter who needs to distribute his energy in order to keep his stamina for the tlweve rounds. Taylor has fought better opposition than Abraham in the names of Bernard Hopkins, Ronald Wright and Kelly Pavlik, but he has suffered from stamina problems in Kelly Pavlik first encounter and recently on the Carl Froch’s. Abraham fought against a good fighter in Colombian Edison Miranda the first time, a dirty fight in which, had Miranda not lost the amount of points he did, he could have won the fight. What he did on that fight was to press the action from the beginning, show a lot of movement over the ring and throw big amount of punches.
That said, Taylor is not a pressure fighter and does not moves around the ring that much. He keeps the distance away from his opponent with his pretty good jab but he tends to get caught in the ropes, therefore taking a sustained attack which is his downfall. For this fight, the pressure is most likely on Taylor, having lost three of his last four fights, and as stated before, showing his stamina problem. If Taylor is able to work his stamina problem he’ll prevail the full twelve rounds, but will be under heavy pressure against the King Arhur Abraham.
I believe Taylor will come to the fight, with a strategy of throwing 30-40 jabs trying to stay away from Abraham, with Abraham keeping his hands up looking to attack the body of Taylor which will have an effect on the later rounds. I expect the fight to be a high-level tactical match-up with a flash knockdown being the difference in the fight. I’m picking up Abraham to win a close decision in a technical fight.