By James Slater: Tonight, before a massive and adoring crowd in Germany, former IBF middleweight ruler “King” Arthur Abraham scored a comeback win over a game but overmatched Pablo Oscar Natalio Farias. Needing a good win after his bad losses in the recent “Super Six” tourney, 31-year-old Abraham finally got his power shots home after a sluggish start tonight.
Body shots got home for Abraham in the 5th, along with some shots to the head, and the smaller, somewhat fleshy-looking Argentine crumpled to the canvas three times. The official time of the ending was 2-minutes of the 5th.
Abraham is now 33-3(27). 24-year-old Farias is now 19-2(11).
Looking slow, his timing off in the early rounds, Abraham was even backed up on occasion by the much smaller, shorter man. Farias used a lot of movement and he was giving Abraham fits at times. Letting go with bursts at times, adopting his customary high guard at others, Abraham was made to look clumsy as he attacked. His punches missing badly, the Armenian-born star just couldn’t nail his man cleanly. Until the 5th-round.
The ending came suddenly and the finish will likely make fans forget the less than impressive earlier rounds. How much has Abraham got left? A good question indeed. There has been talk of the former middleweight king getting back down to 160, in search of another crown. But can the big-for-the-super-middleweight division fighter make it that low at age 31? It’s tough to see Abraham winning a major belt at 168.
Then again, “King” Arthur will always have that power. Giving him the benefit of the doubt in putting tonight’s average performance down to ring rust (eight months since Abraham lost to Andre Ward in his last fight), Abraham’s fans will judge him by his next fight. Still a huge attraction in Germany, Abraham will probably be back in action quite soon. But again, how much have Abraham’s many wars taken from him?
In other action on the card:
Ramona Kuehne TKO 8 Renata Domsodi
Dustin Dirks TKO 4 Sam Couzens
Kubrat Pulev TKO 10 Michael Sprott
Marcos Nader UD 8 Farouk Daku
Robert Stieglitz UD 12 Henry Weber