cthoaa said:There was a stretch a while back where Ward went inactive for 7 or 8 months, but now he's back to fighting every three or four, which is great. I hope Showtime can keep him on tv and a fight with Green or Pascal would be welcome.
I have no high praise for Ward, but he looked much better than he has in the past and he was fighting by far his best opponent to date. I would still favor either Pascal or Green against him if those fights occured. More than anything else, I'm happy to see one of our few gold medal winners wake up in his pro career.
cthoaa said:Abraham to 168 for either Lacy or Andrade? I'm not sure he goes up again or lets his title go undefended for that fight. Lacy, I don't think I can watch anymore--he's a changed fighter after Calzaghe--but I would be interested in seeing if Abraham's the guy to crack Andrade's chin.
If Pavlik-Abraham gets made to unify their titles, do you think that fight is a pick'em?
Abraham is going to end up at super middleweight very quickly if he continues to fight in the US. After getting Marquez out of the way, Abraham has only 3 potential fights at 160 in the US that HBO or Showtime would buy: Pavlik (everyone's dream fight), Wright, and Taylor. Of those, all three could take place at 168. At every level, 168 is a dramatically deeper division. Pavlik is very likely going to be looking for Calzaghe sooner than later, so I consider it unlikely the Abraham fight is going to happen. We'll see though. I honestly don't follow boxing politics as closely as I used to.
Right now, I would favor Pavlik because of reach and experience. Pavlik is going to be very hard for anyone to beat at 160 or 168 (and 175 eventually more than likely). Abraham has been extremely impressive though. He's had my attention since I watched him knock out Kingsley Ikeke. It's still difficult at this point to judge his overall package tough. His resume is lacking in experienced internationally proven opposition. Honestly, I think his stoppage of Miranda overrates his power. Its a little hard for me to take any middleweight seriously that couldn't knock out Shannon Taylor.