By Shaun Murphy – I think, in boxing, we’ve been extremely lucky over the course of the last few years as a continuum of highly-skilled tough guys have graced the middleweights and encapsulated the public with their glitz and heart. For example, Bernard Hopkins ruled the division with his knarred fists and jail-house manners for 21 defences. And like domestic fish before feeding time, bubbling under Hopkins’s middleweight waters, stalked a group of fiery-eyed pretenders itching to devour the division’s oldest ever champion. Eventually, the affable Jermaine Taylor defeated the 41-year-old ‘’Executioner’’ and a pressured flood gate opened to a new world and breed of contender…
I like Jermain Taylor, he’s got that hard working blue-collar style of thinking and fighting I admire. When ‘’Bad Intensions’’ enters the ring you know you’re getting an honest performance that’ll be driven by a need to put on a show. However [although Hopkins moved up to light heavyweight] the tall-lean Kelly Pavlik was one of those fish that needed feeding and he wanted Taylor’s belt. Unfortunately, for Taylor, ”The Ghost” had something to prove and when he met Taylor in the center of the ring in September, 2009, in New Jersey’s Boardwalk Hall, his lazer-like punches won him the title in the 7th rd..
Taylor wanted a rematch and, although he put up a good performance, ‘’The Ghost’’ kept his title and cemented his claim as the planet’s best middleweight. Or is he?
‘’He Can Walk Through Walls’’
Before the talented Wayne Elcock was set to fight Arthur Abraham he was warned ‘’this man is strong. He can walk through walls’’.
Being an ex-street fighter, decorated amateur and B.T. engineer – Elcock probably felt a sliver of terror edge down his spine, but lingered in the quite confidence all men have about their own untapped fighting prowess. Then he saw Abraham up close: the Armenian’s granite-hard head, slopping shoulders and class-A muscle spread sinisterly across his real man’s physique may have worried him. However, Elcock might have told himself he was strong too and returned to that confident place.
Then the Armenian started to fight and punch after devastating punch was thrown at Elcock’s chin and, from this savagery, the Englishman’s world-title aspirations were ended in the 5th rd.
Abraham’s most impressive victory, however, has been against the heavy hitting Columbian Edison Miranda. ‘’King Arthur’’ TKO’d the tough South American in 4 rds, and sent out a shock wave to boxing’s middleweight division he meant business.
Abraham’s one of the many non-natives fighting out of Germany, and the Armenian strongman has won the German Boxer of the Year Award three-times; proving how popular he is in his adopted home.
Again, showing his class, in his last outing, ‘’King Arthur’’ stopped the fringe-contender Mahir Oral in the 10th rd. It’s clear, to me, and to everyone who follows the sport that there needs to be some negotiations made for Abraham-Pavlik.
I think, in the current climate, the disparity in style and the fire power both bring into the ring would be a catalyst for a modern day classic. If you go down the list: Pavlik-Kessler, Kessler-Hopkins, Frotch-Abraham – not one fight, around middleweight, has the guaranteed explosion of Pavlik-Abraham. After ‘’The Ghosts’’ defeat by Hopkins, at 27-years-old, he is eager to rebuild his fistic reputation among the chiter-chatting, fair-weather boxing public. This fight needs to be made, and if the contest is agreed upon — the boxing world will have a fight that’ll eclipse anything MMA could produce in its wildest imagination.
In closing, if this fight is arranged my year will be made – for boxing – this contest needs to happen! As I believe Arthur Abraham is the world’s best middleweight, and he needs to battle Kelly Pavlik in a classic to prove it…