Weird day of fights...

-Abraham decides not to punch against Froch even though Froch's left hand is low and the fight is fought largely at Abrahams preferred range.

-Litzau takes the fight to Caballero and beats him on will and effective punching.

-Berto KO's the usually sturdy Freddy Hernandez in round 1.

-JMM gets knocked down and wins by TKO without ever knocking Katsidis down. Not saying JMM didn't deserve the win (cuz he was clearly the better man) but it is still unusual to me.

-Bika takes the fight to Ward who looks ineffective and mostly powerless.

I watch alot of boxing and today was real ****in weird to me.

 

Abraham is not an inside or outside fighter. At first Froch kept things on the outside, but after round 3, I could count a million times that froch was well within range for AA to shoot his right and he rarely did.

 

I watched the fight twice. I credit Froch for his well fought fight. I don't even like Froch. But if you really watch, there were many missed opportunities for AA to throw the right hand. If he had given Froch a reason to think twice about his offense, it would have been very different. Froch did a great job of slipping punches, but there werent many to slip. If there had been more, Froch wouldn't have slipped em all.

 

I have always thought Abrahams Style was bizarre but its usually not as simple as it seemed against Froch. He lets people get comfortable for a few rounds and sizes them up. Then explodes with murderous punches that cause his opponent out of their comfort zone, making them realize he can hurt them badly. The other fighter becomes hesitant, Abraham becomes confident and he either wins on points or destroys them. The Taylor fight is perfect example of this. He would have won on points without the knockout, whereas Froch needed a knockout to win against Taylor. Dirrel was quick enough hold off this part of the plan, but Froch wasn't. That Abraham flurry in the 12th was all I needed to see to know that Abraham could have taken the fight to Froch any time after the 3rd.

 

I watched that fight. AA was clearly drained to make 160 at this point. And he still pulled off the win. Not impressively but wasn't that his last fight at 160 for a reason? I've watched many AA fights and the style I described above was his usual and most effective style. Defensive shell for 3-4 rounds, explode and make opponents fear him after that. It worked most of the time and it could still work. Not that I don't think he should be able to do more, but he skipped the part where he lands and intimidated his opponents the last two times. Dirrel I get. Too fast and had something to prove after the Froch "defeat". But Froch was there for the taking. Not at first, but after a while he was close enough to be hit clean with AA's right. He just didn't throw it.

 

I forgot to mention that Nate Campbell lost on the undercard! Weird day...