King Arthur Abraham (33-3, 27 KOs) celebrated a successful ring return on Saturday night when he knocked out Pablo Farias (19-2, 11 KOs) in the fifth round of their clash in Offenburg, Germany. Fighting in front of a sell-out crowd of 4,000 fans and more than five million fans on German public TV giant ARD, Abraham punished his opponent with his trademark power punches. He knocked him down three times before the referee waved the bout off after two minutes in round five. “It´s good to be back,” King Arthur said. “This was a good start, nothing more and nothing less. I am pleased with my performance and will keep working hard to get back to the very top. I want to be world champion again in 2012.”
Farias, the IBF´s number three, came out aggressively and was on the front foot throughout most of the fight. “It took Arthur a while to find the right distance,” coach Ulli Wegner said. “Once he had found it, we all know how hard he can punch. It was a good comeback victory.” Said Farias: “I started well but when he hit me with his power it was over. His punches are very hard.”
Promoter Kalle Sauerland believes that 2012 will be Abraham´s year. “He just knocked out the IBF´s number three in five rounds, that´s a very good start,” Sauerland stated. “King Arthur is back on track and he has great things ahead in 2012.” The victory made him the new WBO Europe Super-Middleweight Champion.
In the co-featured main event, WBO Super-Middleweight Champion Robert Stieglitz (41-2, 23 KOs) retained his title with a points victory over brave challenger Henry Weber (15-1-1, 3 KOs). Stieglitz was ahead 116-112, 118-110 and 119-109 after twelve rounds. Heavyweight hopeful Kubrat Pulev (15-0, 7 KOs) continued his march up the rankings with a ninth-round TKO victory over Michael Sprott (36-18, 17 KOs).
As in September, I once again ran out of gas in the 10th & 11th championship rounds of October & November with this column, but I recovered to complete them and will unleash a few more flurries to close out the 12th and final round.
In the first week of October, Hassan N’Dam won a UD over Curtis Stevens in an eliminator for the right to challenge Jermaine Taylor who defeated aging Sam Soliman to regain the IBF Middleweight title. How Taylor even earned this title shot is another story altogether, but it is all irrelevant as he is now the champion. However he will not have too much time to savor his victory as he has assault and battery charges pending against him and an upcoming court fight that may turn out to be the toughest fight of his life, just when things started to look up for him in boxing, we wish him luck.
