The much anticipated Super Middleweight ‘Super Six’ series starts this weekend with two of the three first round matches taking place. For those of you not in the know, pictured above are the six competitors (from L-R Arthur Abraham, Mikkel Kessler, Carl Froch, some promoter, Andre Ward, Jermain Taylor and Andre Dirrell). I’m not sure how the entire format will work, but these men will fight off over the next year to see who is the best. The only top 168lbers not in this tournament are Lucian Bute and Librado Andrade who will fight their rematch later this year. Fighting this weekend are Arthur Abraham and Jermain Taylor as well as Carl Froch vs Andre Dirrell with Kessler-Ward taking place next month.
This is the first time in a while I’ve gone back and forth so much on not one fight in a weekend, but two big fights. Both of these matchups are even and there’s a lot of variables to take into place such as the fight locations, the fighters weights and their recent results. It’s hard to make any sort of confident prediction with these two fights.
Arthur Abraham vs Jermain Taylor
When these two held their respective belts at 160lbs I always thought Taylor would beat Abraham should they meet. My tune has changed over time and now, especially at 168lbs, I think Abraham is the strong favourite but I’m not at all confident in that prediction for a number of reasons. Abraham is still yet to face someone in the league of a Jermain Taylor. Most of his wins have been over 2nd rate Middleweights with the odd exception (mainly being Edison Miranda who was a dangerous contender when he fought Abraham the first time). However, Abraham has to be the more confident of the two going in with Taylor losing his last fight by knockout to Carl Froch and losing two fights not long before that to Kelly Pavlik. Taylor’s been saying that he has fixed his conditioning problem but if this fight gets to the 6th and 7th rounds again I’m sure we’ll see Taylor revert back to fighting only 30 seconds of each round as he’ll start to question his conditioning again. Abraham has said for a while that he’s been struggling to make 160lbs and this can be backed up by the performance in his one fight north of middleweight in the rematch with Edison Miranda. Another factor to take into account is that this fight is in Germany and will be the first time that Taylor has fought outside of the USA. Taylor should dominate early with his jab and Abraham is a slow starter who likes to get his defence set before launching his offence, but I think come the 4th and 5th round Abraham will take over and his punching power should be too much for a fatigued Taylor around the 10-11 round mark. Arthur Abraham by 11th round knockout.
Andre Dirrell vs Carl Froch
I’ve been scratching my head about this fight for the last few weeks. Froch is such an ugly fighter to watch with his hands down, chin in the air lunging style of his but he’s so effective at it. His defence is horrendous early in a fight but he seems to figure out his opponents angles and adjusts his defence as the rounds go on as he did against Jean Pascal and Jermain Taylor. Dirrell is your typical ex-amateur star who has excellent footwork, handspeed and combinations without the devastating one punch power. There’s no doubt who the more experienced of the two is and it’ll be interesting to see how Dirrell makes the adjustment from fighting guys like Anthony Hanshaw and Victor Oganov to fighting one of the big names in the division. The other big factor here is that Dirrell is fighting in Froch’s backyard which is good to see from a young prospect, especially an American one as the US fighters tend to like to fight in their country. I think two big questions that could decide this fight are how Froch deals with Dirrell from the southpaw stance as his awkward defensive approach could spell trouble against a straight left hand from a southpaw and how Dirrell’s conditioning will be in the second half of a tough fight against a world class fighter like Froch. I’ve been leaning towards Dirrell to pull off the upset and I’m going to stick with it. I think his handspeed and footwork combined with the youth and hunger that Jermain Taylor didn’t have against Froch will see Dirrell be able to repeatedly hurt Froch throughout the fight and score a stoppage in the mid-late rounds. Andre Dirrell by 8th round knockout.`
