A Devastating Loss For Abraham

I agree. A very perceptive post IMO.

 

Even after having time to think about it he said that he thought that punch was OK to throw because the ref didn't stop him. How can you call that unintentional?

 

I'm not using the argument from authority. Bute is open to overhead rights; his defence is not good enough. If Bika, Berrio, Joppy and Andrade could land a few flush overhead rights on Bute early on, just imagine what damage Andrade could do with his. Abraham is aware that Bute would look for the right moment to deliver the KO blow to the body, so he would head-hunt from the very first round. Bute is a slow starter and he can always be phased early on by an aggressive, all-out fighter - see the two Andrade fights.

The only fighter that I would pick unreservedly to beat Abraham is Ward, because Ward is effective on the outside as well as on the inside (Bute doesn't have an inside game) and because Ward is very smart and has a very good defence.

 

Abraham himself admitted he intended to hurt Dirrell with that punch. You yourself posted a translation to that effect. So how was the punch unintentional? Huh? He didn't intend to DQ himself. He intended to hit Dirrell and Dirrell just happened to have fallen down a moment earlier, in front of his very eyes. Now, I know you're tired and emotional, but let's not kid ourselves here...

 

andre knocked him down with a straight left that came just after AA opened up with some wide shots. the slap-down late in the fight was also a counterpunch off of AA opening up.

 

You and I can see this... but posters like the TS can't. Oh, well... all men were not created equal.

 

He said "I was not looking at his feet, I was looking at his eyes", and that happened many times before. In my view Jones didn't purposefully hit Griffin, Pac either vs. Marquez and I don't think Khan purposefully hit Kristjansen when he was down, and all of these were serious situations with the opponents clearly down. Jones also found late success after some frustrating rounds and both him and Abraham were unloading punches when the incident happened, smelled blood, got one more in in the heat of the action, and rightfully punished by disqualification. This is the correct call, but to say fighters intentionally disqualify and disgrace themselves in front of world-wide audience is a ridiculous thought, and I'm not even bringing in Abraham, who was well known being one of the most respectful boxer out there, it doesn't matter. These guys don't do that on purpose.

 

100% agree. I must add thought that I thought Dirrell was astonishing for the first 9 rounds. I was expecting slick, I was expecting fast hands, footwork etc but Dirrell demonstrated them all to an exquisite level. Switching between orthodox/southpaw, he in no way looked at all in trouble, until the the KD.

AA cheated himself out of a very viable chance of knocking Dirrell out. If you compare punch stat numbers you'll see that he probably landed more through 8-11 than he did 1-7, and you could see Dirrell was not up to taking the power of AA. Frustrating to see a fight I've been looking forward to for so long end in a DQ, I still have questions. I'd love to see a rematch between the 2 and it's very possible we might depending on how things go in the lead up to the semis.

 

I disagree about Abraham being "exposed". He has often been in fights where he was down on the cards going into the 10th. And always found a way to win. Don't tell me he now is beatable by a boxer; he's always been!

Let's not forget that Abraham lost because he fouled. He didn't lose on points. The fight could've gone both ways. Arthur was coming on big time; he scored a knockdown in the 10th and Dirrel was clearly hurt by it, even if it wasn't ruled one officially. Dirrel was also slowing down and less active with his counter punching. He had major trouble keeping AA off him who was rushing in like a bull and landing more and more shots. Going into the 11th, I felt the KO was imminent, and it was, but not in the way i expected of course.

Put it like this. If Taylor slipped in the 11th and Chavez got DQ when hitting him when he was down, you would've also seen threads on how "Chavez was exposed". But a fight isn't over until it's over. Dirrel won by DQ, but by no means was the fight a sealed deal at that point. Andre had a clear points lead, but also had a relatively high chance of getting KO'd.

I do agree with your last paragraph that this SuperSix tournament has had a good share of surprises. I don't know Green, but other than him, i think everyone can still win this tournament. Right now i favor Ward, but i don't like him at all. I hope Abraham or Kessler takes it.



Edit: i also agree that Dirrel did prove to be more than just another prospect. He fought a disciplined fight and showed a really good chin. Abraham did connect with hard shots and before the 10th he was never really in trouble by them. His stamina is a bit of a question mark though, but everyone has a weakness.

 

Great opening post, K.

I really don't care who would be favourite in a Pavlik/Abraham fight. I'd sure as hell want to watch it.

 

I think we learned a few things about AA we didn't know before.

1) He has no head reflexes, so when punches get through his guard, he takes them flush. He got dropped twice in this fight (though only one was official) and neither time did he turn his head in the slightest to aovid the shot.

2) He can't take it to the body. I have never seen a guy cry so much about clean body shots. There was one low blow the whole fight, yet he cried from the 5th round on. He was hurt by one of them too, and it's not like Dirrel is a big body puncher.


I think I am poison to the super six tourney. I picked Kessler to win it at first. Then he got his ass whooped. Then I went to AA, and he got dominated.

Now I'm picking Ward.

So Froch should win the whole thing.


Keith

 

AA is a low life cheat.

 

Great post. :thumbsup

And with that, I'll add that I'd watch a rematch between the two any day as I'm sure the rest of the board would as well. That's not the kind of thing that happens when a fighter's truly "exposed". I was on the edge of my seat to see how it was going to end as the two are great stylistic foils for each other. Hardly "exposure".

 

Why didn't the referee give Abraham the knockdown in round 10, this was clearly an advantage for the hometown fighter.:twisted: