Does Paul Smith Have Any Chance in His World-Title Fight Against Arthur Abraham?
In two of his last three British title fights, Liverpool's Paul Smith has been stopped, once brutally inside two rounds, and yet he lines up on Saturday night to challenge for Arthur Abraham's WBO super-middleweight title in Kiel, Germany.
Smith, 35-3, would stand absolutely no chance against the credible champions at the weight—Andre Ward and Carl Froch—but fortunately for him it is the aging Abraham who has granted him this unearned opportunity.
Abraham, 40-4, has had 14 fights in the super-middleweight division, winning 10 of the 11 in Germany and losing all three outside of his adopted homeland. That gives you the flavour of his legitimacy as a "world" champion. A bogus title-holder for a bogus challenger.
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Promoters Matchroom report that Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney has commandeered a private jet to watch his fellow Scouser at the Sparkassen Arena. To say that spending a five-figure sum to travel to a Paul Smith fight is a sign of having more money than sense is surely an understatement.
The bookmakers' odds suggest Abraham has an 80 percent chance of winning and, given his reputation as a puncher, a 60 percent chance of winning by stoppage.
In reality, though, the Armenian-born fighter carries less power at super middleweight than he did as a dangerous middleweight. He has 28 KOs from 40 career wins but in his last eight fights, he has only one win by stoppage from seven victories.
On the other hand, Smith was stopped in Round 9 by the then-24-year-old James DeGale and blitzed inside two rounds by a then-23-year-old George Groves. That hardly suggests great resilience, especially given the Liverpool challenger was a grown man facing inexperienced youngsters.
And, earlier this year in a third fight with Robert Stieglitz, Abraham decked the outgoing WBO champion in the final round, which helped him take a close points win—that suggests he still carries a dig.
Abraham was not expected to win that fight having been stopped due to a closed eye after three rounds of their second match when Stieglitz came out fast and laid a beating on "King Arthur," avenging a points loss from their first encounter.
After dropping the belt to his countryman in early 2013, Abraham looked pretty washed up in labouring to a debatable decision win a year ago against the virtually unknown and six times already beaten Namibian fighter Willbeforce Shihepo.
Smith's best chance is if Abraham turns up in that sort of form, looking disinterested and fighting at a slow pace. Abraham pulled a performance out of the fire to beat Stieglitz in March but at 34 years old, there are serious questions as to how much he has left, and it would be easy for him not to take the challenge of Smith that seriously.
There is no doubt that Smith will enter in excellent condition and he has been saying the right things. It sounds as though his strategy will be to try to work behind the jab and outbox Abraham, as Froch did quite comfortably in 2010, while remaining cautious because of Abraham's perceived power.
An important question will be whether Smith has enough sting in his punches to make Abraham respect him—if he doesn't the champion will just walk him down and detonate his own big shots.
Smith has okay power but despite winning four in a row by stoppage, he has never knocked out a good fighter, unless you count a virtually finished version of Tony Dodson, which you shouldn't.
Abraham has always been a slow starter and if he is as lacklustre as on his worst nights, it is quite conceivable that Smith could win perhaps five of the first six rounds. (Last time out Nikola Sjekloca, who is on a similar level to Smith, probably won three of the first six before Abraham got his jab working.)
That's the best scenario for neutrals because it would set up an exciting second half with Abraham needing to get Smith out of there or at least knock him down. That said, even if he can win early rounds, it is hard to imagine Smith standing up to the traditional Abraham second-half onslaught.
Smith isn't a bad boxer and Abraham can definitely be outboxed, as he was by Froch, Ward and Andre Dirrell in the Super Six tournament, but the Liverpool man is not on their level and may lack sufficient confidence in his punch resistance to really go for it, as Stieglitz did in Abraham's last defeat.
Certainly if Abraham shows up in the condition he was to beat Stieglitz in March then Smith has little chance and will only escape a KO defeat if he runs as much as Mayweather did in the last round against Marcos Maidana. The last overmatched Liverpudlian to try that in a world-title fight still get knocked out—Tony Bellew against Adonis Stevenson in November.
But there is a decent chance the champion isn't at his best and things could then get interesting. In an upset victory, Smith would become the first of four fighting brothers to become a world champion, if one whom the new European champion Groves beat easily, a feat the Londoner would be expected to repeat in a rematch.
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