BERLIN, Germany (AFP)—Germany’s Arthur Abraham (born Avetik Abrahamyan in Yerevan) is the new world WBO super middleweight champion after his unanimous win over compatriot Robert Stieglitz on Aug. 25.
Abraham, 32, who defended his IBF middleweight title 10 times between 2005 and 2009, is now the world champion at the heavier weight after the judges scored the fight 116-112, 116-112, 115-113.
“This is an emotional moment for me and it’s hard to describe how I feel,” said Abraham.
“I always wanted to be the middleweight world champion and now I am the super middlweight champion too.”
“I trained hard for this and I had to box cleverly against such a good champion.”
Having held the title for three years, Stieglitz was well beaten with heavy bruising and cuts around both eyes at the end of the punishing title bout, while Abraham was left relatively unmarked.
Abraham lived up to his ‘King Arthur’ moniker and the new champion now has a record of 27 knock-outs in 35 wins and three defeats.
Having labored to a points win over Piotr Wilczewski to defend his European WBO title in March, Abraham was back to his best fighting for the world title.
Abraham started the stronger of the pair, but the champion twice pinned the challenger to the ropes in the second and started to exert his authority.
Stieglitz raised the tempo in the third and Abraham fell clearly behind on points going into the fourth, but responded with some body-head combinations, and one sharp hook left Stieglitz with swelling above his left eye.
By the fifth, Stieglitz’s face was marking noticeably while Abraham started to let his guard drop to lure the champion as he landed some punishing shots.
Stieglitz put together some good combinations in the 7th round and kept up his impressive work-rate, despite a cut above his right eye needing the attention of the ring doctor in the 10th.
Abraham raised his fists to the Berlin crowd in early celebration before the start of the 12th, and finished clearly ahead on points as Stieglitz, 31, suffered the third defeat of his career in his 45th fight.
Germany’s WBA super-middleweight and IBF middleweight title-holder Felix Sturm, who fights next Saturday against Australia’s Daniel Geale, has said he will fight the winner of Saturday’s bout.
He was lucky he won. He took off the last two rounds. I was screaming at my screen for him to throw punches in the 12th. It disappointed me to see an Armenian athlete get lazy as he did and always does. If anyone can connect with this guy, tell him to get a new trainer – an American one like Teddy Atlas or Ronnie Shields – so he can become a world champion and not just a paper champion. Like a lot of Armenian boxers, he was blessed with tremendous power but the guy is extremely lazy, has slow feet, no championship level endurance, a poor work rate and can’t fight inside – something necessary for a shorter fighter. It saddens me that Armenia’s best athlete is as lazy as he is.
It is always easy to sit aside or out of the ring, judge and make decisions. Positive critics is always good and fruitful. Abraham, I saw you few months ago on Armenian TV (Hye loor). You are3 promising. Don’t give up. Fight for your right fight for your NATION. We love you and I am sure everybody else does the same. Glauben Sie mir. Wir brauchen viel mehr Armenian Championen . Keep your chin up. May be our friend was right. Think twice before you change your trainer.
Look, all I am saying is that if this guy had half the discipline Vic Darchinyan has or half the workout habits Vanes Martirosyan has, he’d be a household name GLOBALLY. Instead he is a lazy guy, who does not learn from his mistakes. He’ll never be great and that is what is truly sad., because of any Armenian athlete since Andre Agassi, he had the potential.
Mark, he’s a World Champion, despite his “laziness” he became Great.. Whatever he’s doing seems to work for him. Most of of us would probably die of exhaustion after 1 day of workouts with him. Congratulations Arthur, excuse me, World Champion Arthur. We’re really proud of you. You’re the man!