24.09.06 – By Evan Young, BoxingForecast.com: Yesterday at the Rittal Arena in Wetzler, Germany, Florida trained contender via Colombia, Edison Miranda, seemingly had a sure victory snatched away by a questionable decision. After a competitive 3 rounds, Miranda broke Abraham’s jaw with a scalding right hand. Immediately thereafter Abraham was bleeding profusely from his open mouth. It was apparent that he was in great distress and was unable to close his mouth down on his mouthpiece. Soon after that scoring blow, Abraham suffered a headbutt to another part of his head.. He leaned outside of ropes and spilled gobs of blood on the arena floor. Abraham didn’t want to continue and the doctor suggested the same but in his only correct decision of the day the referee said the damage to Abraham was caused by a punch and he would be declared a TKO loser if he didn’t continue.
Reluctantly, Abraham agreed to go in in spite of his obvious distress. This is where strange things began to happen which ultimately led to Abraham retaining his championship belt. The referee zapped Edison Mirando 2 points for the headbutt. After this point, it was Miranda chasing his wounded prey around the ring while Abraham, although showing courage and grit for continuing, was nearly being run out of the ring. In the seventh round, Miranda was docked 2 more points for beltline punches that should have been ignored.
Now with 4 points docked from Miranda, it appeared Miranda had to stop the severely injured champion to win. Miranda kept moving forward and throwing hard shots. Abraham held, ran and hid the best he could. He would turn his back on the forward moving challenger, which often signals giving up but he hung on – barely.
Even the ref Randy Neuman, seemed perilously close to stopping the fight, due to Abraham being in obvious his distress and reluctance for combat. Then in the 11th round where Miranda looked like he might finally get Abraham out of there, he landed a good body shot that visably hurt Abraham. Abraham signaled that it was low – it was not – and the ref took yet another point form Miranda. That was the 5th point taken from Miranda. I’ve never seen anything like it. And to add to the disgrace, he gave the Abraham, who appeared to me to be faking that he was hurt, a full 5 minutes to recover. Abraham looked all but done as blood poured from his agape mouth, and as he bent over gasping for air during his respite. When the fight resumed, Miranda pressed forward and Abraham resumed to covering up and running away while doing nothing in return.
But somehow Abraham got to the final bell and that was all that was needed on this day to retain his title. I believe that without that ridculous rest period, Abraham wouldn’t have seen the final bell and justice would have been served in spite of best efforts otherwise. Well, Abraham got the unjust decision with all the “infractions” called on Miranda. BoxingForecast felt that Miranda was so dominant that he should have won in spite of the five point deductions but that wasn’t happening, not in Germany. See my pick. I understand that Abraham was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery while Miranda’s people were left scratching their heads as to how they could have left Germany with a win and a title short of killing Abraham. It happened again as Germany chalks up another more than highly contoversial decision.