Featured Articles
Arthur Abraham Wants A Piece of History This Saturday

You have to give long-time super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham credit for wanting to fight highly touted Gilberto Ramirez this Saturday night at the MGM Grand. The encounter will air on HBO pay-per-view as the top undercard bout to Manny Pacquiao vs. Timothy Bradley III and is for Abraham’s WBO World super middleweight title.
The 36-year-old Abraham is of Armenian descent, but he has fought most of his thirteen year career in Germany. He has compiled a record of 44-4 and has been at the top of the sport for a long time.
Back in December of 2005, now more than a decade ago, Abraham captured the vacant IBF World middleweight title when he knocked out Kingsley Ikeke (23-1) in Leipzig, Germany. Over the course of the next three-plus years, Abraham defended the belt 10 times. One of those fights was in Switzerland and he also fought a non-title bout with Edison Miranda in Florida, but he was a fighter cast in the German scene.
By the fall of 2009, the then 29-year-old Abraham was looking for a challenge and he found it in the way of Showtime’s Super Six tournament. The choice to compete in the tournament meant giving up his IBF middleweight belt and moving up to the super middleweight class, but the chance to compete against the world’s best in the weight class was what Abraham wanted. For him it came at exactly the right time. He had already been champion for four years at middleweight and he had outgrown the German scene and craved attention at a world level. When he tossed his name in the hat for the Super Six, then undefeated (30-0) Arthur Abraham was installed as one of the early favorites to win it all.
The opening match of the tournament saw Abraham knock out Jermaine Taylor in the 12th round in brutal fashion. Though Taylor was also a former middleweight who had lost three of his previous four, the match moved Abraham to the clear favorite in the Super Six.
But for Abraham, that first step onto the world stage unraveled after the win over Taylor. It did not help that sloppy management of the tournament format by Showtime extended the tournament for almost three years, but Abraham would fight three more times in the Super Six and go 0-3.
In March of 2010 he lost to Andre Dirrell by disqualification. Dirrell had campaigned his whole career at 168 pounds and was not a true middleweight. In round four Abraham was sent to the canvas for the first time in his pro career, and by the 11th round he was far behind on the judges scorecards. He was lunging at Dirrell who was back pedalling, and when Dirrell hit the canvas the first time, it was ruled a slip. Abraham charged again and Dirrell fell down again, and this time Abraham slugged him with a knockout blow while Dirrell was on his knees. Gone was Abraham’s undefeated record. Dirrell was ahead comfortably on the cards when the end came, as the southpaw had outworked and outboxed Abraham throughout the fight.
HIs next Super Six fight came in November of 2010 when he faced England’s Carl Froch in Finland. Though he extended the “Cobra” the full twelve round distance, in the end Froch won a wide unanimous decision. Abraham went home and won a 10 round bout when his opponent got hurt in the 2nd round, but that win did little to prepare him for Andre Ward, his May of 2011 opponent in the Super Six. Against Ward, the eventual tournament winner, it was more of the same as Ward won a wide unanimous decision to expel Abraham from the tournament and send him back to Germany.
Since the end of the Super Six tournament, Andre Ward has fought just four times. Carl Froch fought five more times and retired in 2014. What did Arthur Abraham do? He want back to Germany and stayed busy, going 12-1 since his loss to Ward.
Abraham has fought at super middleweight since, and in August of 2012 he fought fellow countryman Robert Steiglitz (42-2 at the time) and defeated him to take the WBO World title at 168 lbs. The match put him back in the good graces of the German boxing public, and he settled in to fight at home. The lone loss he experienced came at the hands of rival Steiglitz when he lost the WBO title back to him in their March of 2013 rematch, but part of Abraham´s success in Germany has been going 3-1 overall against Steiglitz in a series of grudge matches. Steiglitz, for those who may not know him, is 49-5-1 over his long career and the Abraham-Steiglitz rivalry has been one of Germany´s hottest boxing rivalries this century.
Since winning the WBO 168-pound belt for a second time from Steiglitz, Abraham has gone on to make five successful title defenses. Before you chalk it up to “regional” competition, Abraham had a busy 2015, going 3-0. His last outing of 2014 saw him face England’s Paul Smith, and though he won the fight, he did not have a top shelf performance. To open 2015 he took on Smith again, winning more decisively and ending the budding rivalry.
His second match of 2015 saw him give Steiglitz a fourth bout despite having won the trilogy 2-1. Like with Smith, he gave an opponent a rematch when he didn’t have to and Abraham made it pay off. He finished Steiglitz in the sixth round for the most definitive win of the series. For his final fight of 2015, he faced England’s Martin Murray in late November and won a hard fought split decision. He went 3-0 against opponents with a combined record of 114-10-2.
Upon arriving in Las Vegas this week for the fight with Ramirez, Abraham spoke about his place in German boxing history. He stated that he was proud to be the first German world champion to defend his belt in Las Vegas. He also left no doubt that he did not come just to defend the belt, he came to win.
Abraham had options back in Germany. A showdown with Felix Sturm (40-5-3) has been talked about for years and would be a big money fight in the German market. A move to light heavyweight could have created a big money fight with Juergen Braehmer (48-2). But four years after the end of the Super Six, Abraham still craved the attention of the world stage.
Abraham finds himself the underdog to the talented Ramirez, who is undefeated (33-0) and enters the fight taller, longer and 12 years younger. This is a challenge that would have kept many others in Germany.
Not Abraham. Arriving in Vegas, he stated he was not worried about what Ramirez was going to do, that he was more worried about executing his plan and what he was going to do. Sounds like a confident champion. Can he do it? We will see this Saturday night.
Check out The Boxing Channel video “Pacquiao vs Bradley III is Here – Main Card Odds Review”.
Featured Articles
Late Bloomer Anthony Cacace TKOs Hometown Favorite Leigh Wood in Nottingham

Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions was at Motorpoint Arena in Nottingham, England, tonight with a card featuring hometown favorite Leigh Wood against Ireland’s Anthony “Apache” Cacace.
Wood, a former two-time WBA featherweight champion, known for dramatic comebacks in bouts he was losing, may have reached the end of the road at age 36. He had his moments tonight, rocking Cacace on several occasions and winning the eighth round, but he paid the price, returning to his corner after round eight with swelling around both of his eyes.
In the ninth, Cacace, an 11/5 favorite, hurt Wood twice with left hands, the second of which knocked Wood into the ropes, dictating a standing 8-count by referee John Latham. When the bout resumed, Cacace went for the kill and battered Wood around the ring, forcing Wood’s trainer Ben Davison to throw in the towel. The official time was 2:15 of round nine.
Akin to Wood, Northern Ireland’s Cacace (24-1, 9 KOs) is also 36 years old and known as a late bloomer. This was his ninth straight win going back to 2017 (he missed all of 2018 and 2020). He formerly held the IBF 130-pound world title, a diadem he won with a stoppage of then-undefeated and heavily favored Joe Cordina, but that belt wasn’t at stake tonight as Cacace abandoned it rather than fulfill his less-lucrative mandatory. Wood falls to 28-4.
Semi-Wind-Up
Nottingham light heavyweight Ezra Taylor, fighting in his hometown for the first time since pro debut, delighted his fan base with a comprehensive 10-round decision over previously undefeated Troy Jones. Taylor, who improved to 12-0 (9) won by scores of 100-90, 99-91, and 98-92.
This was Taylor’s first fight with new trainer Malik Scott, best known for his work with Deontay Wilder. The victory may have earned him a match with Commonwealth title-holder Lewis Edmondson. Jones was 12-0 heading in.
Other Bouts of Note
In his first fight as a featherweight, Liam Davies rebounded from his first defeat with a 12-round unanimous decision over Northern Ireland’s previously undefeated Kurt Walker. Davies, who improved to 17-1 (8), staved off a late rally to prevail on scores of 115-113, 116-112, and 117-111. It was the first pro loss for the 30-year-old Walker (12-1), a Tokyo Olympian.
In a mild upset, Owen Cooper, a saucy Worcestershire man, won a 10-round decision over former Josh Taylor stablemate Chris Kongo. The referee’s scorecard read 96-94.
Cooper improved to 11-1 (4). It was the third loss in 20 starts for Kongo.
A non-televised 8-rounder featured junior welterweight Sam Noakes in a stay-busy fight. A roofer by trade and the brother of British welterweight title-holder Sean Noakes, Sam improved to 17-0 (15 KOs) with a third-round stoppage of overmatched Czech import Patrik Balez (13-5-1).
Photo credit: Leigh Dawney / Queensberry
To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE
Featured Articles
Avila Perspective, Chap. 326: Top Rank and San Diego Smoke

Avila Perspective, Chap. 326: Top Rank and San Diego Smoke
Years ago, I worked at a newsstand in the Beverly Hills area. It was a 24-hour a day version and the people that dropped by were very colorful and unique.
One elderly woman Eva, who bordered on homeless but pridefully wore lipstick, would stop by the newsstand weekly to purchase a pack of menthol cigarettes. On one occasion, she asked if I had ever been to San Diego?
I answered “yes, many times.”
She countered “you need to watch out for San Diego Smoke.”
This Saturday, Top Rank brings its brand of prizefighting to San Diego or what could be called San Diego Smoke. Leading the fight card is Mexico’s Emanuel Navarrete (39-2-1, 32 KOs) defending the WBO super feather title against undefeated Filipino Charly Suarez (18-0, 10 KOs) at Pechanga Arena. ESPN will televise.
This is Navarrete’s fourth defense of the super feather title.
The last time Navarrete stepped in the boxing ring he needed six rounds to dismantle the very capable Oscar Valdez in their rematch. One thing about Mexico City’s Navarrete is he always brings “the smoke.”
Also, on the same card is Fontana, California’s Raymond Muratalla (22-0, 17 KOs) vying for the interim IBF lightweight title against Russia’s Zaur Abdullaev (20-1, 12 KOs) on the co-main event.
Abdullaev has only fought once before in the USA and was handily defeated by Devin Haney back in 2019. But that was six years ago and since then he has knocked off various contenders.
Muratalla is a slick fighting lightweight who trains at the Robert Garcia Boxing Academy now in Moreno Valley, Calif. It’s a virtual boot camp with many of the top fighters on the West Coast available to spar on a daily basis. If you need someone bigger or smaller, stronger or faster someone can match those needs.
When you have that kind of preparation available, it’s tough to beat. Still, you have to fight the fight. You never know what can happen inside the prize ring.
Another fighter to watch is Perla Bazaldua, 19, a young and very talented female fighter out of the Los Angeles area. She is trained by Manny Robles who is building a small army of top female fighters.
Bazaldua (1-0, 1 KO) meets Mona Ward (0-1) in a super flyweight match on the preliminary portion of the Top Rank card. Top Rank does not sign many female fighters so you know that they believe in her talent.
Others on the Top Rank card in San Diego include Giovani Santillan, Andres Cortes, Albert Gonzalez, Sebastian Gonzalez and others.
They all will bring a lot of smoke to San Diego.
Probox TV
A strong card led by Erickson “The Hammer” Lubin (26-2, 18 KOs) facing Ardreal Holmes Jr. (17-0, 6 KOs) in a super welterweight clash between southpaws takes place on Saturday at Silver Spurs Arena in Kissimmee, Florida. PROBOX TV will stream the fight card.
Ardreal has rocketed up the standings and now faces veteran Lubin whose only losses came against world titlists Sebastian Fundora and Jermell Charlo. It’s a great match to decide who deserves a world title fight next.
Another juicy match pits Argentina’s Nazarena Romero (14-0-2) against Mexico’s Mayelli Flores (12-1-1) in a female super bantamweight contest.
Nottingham, England
Anthony Cacace (23-1, 8 KOs) defends the IBO super featherweight title against Leigh Wood (28-3, 17 KOs) in Wood’s hometown on Saturday at Nottingham Arena in Nottingham, England. DAZN will stream the Queensberry Promotions card.
Ireland’s Cacace seems to have the odds against him. But he is no stranger to dancing in the enemy’s lair or on foreign territory. He formerly defeated Josh Warrington in London and Joe Cordina in Riyadh in IBO title defenses.
Lampley at Wild Card
Boxing telecaster Jim Lampley will be signing his new book It Happened! at the Wild Card Boxing gym in Hollywood, Calif. on Saturday, May 10, beginning at 2 p.m. Lampley has been a large part of many of the greatest boxing events in the past 40 years. He and Freddie Roach will be at the signing.
Fights to Watch (All times Pacific Time)
Sat. DAZN 11 a.m. Anthony Cacace (23-1) vs Leigh Wood (28-3).
Sat. PROBOX.tv 3 p.m. Erickson Lubin (26-2) vs Ardreal Holmes Jr. (17-0).
Sat. ESPN 7 p.m. Emanuel Navarrete (39-2-1) vs Charly Suarez (18-0); Raymond Muratalla (22-0) vs Zaur Abdullaev (20-1).
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE
Featured Articles
“Breadman” Edwards: An Unlikely Boxing Coach with a Panoramic View of the Sport

Stephen “Breadman” Edwards’ first fighter won a world title. That may be some sort of record.
It’s true. Edwards had never trained a fighter, amateur or pro, before taking on professional novice Julian “J Rock” Williams. On May 11, 2019, Williams wrested the IBF 154-pound world title from Jarrett Hurd. The bout, a lusty skirmish, was in Fairfax, Virginia, near Hurd’s hometown in Maryland, and the previously undefeated Hurd had the crowd in his corner.
In boxing, Stephen Edwards wears two hats. He has a growing reputation as a boxing coach, a hat he will wear on Saturday, May 31, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas when the two fighters that he currently trains, super middleweight Caleb Plant and middleweight Kyrone Davis, display their wares on a show that will air on Amazon Prime Video. Plant, who needs no introduction, figures to have little trouble with his foe in a match conceived as an appetizer to a showdown with Jermall Charlo. Davis, coming off his career-best win, an upset of previously undefeated Elijah Garcia, is in tough against fast-rising Cuban prospect Yoenli Hernandez, a former world amateur champion.
Edwards’ other hat is that of a journalist. His byline appears at “Boxing Scene” in a column where he answers questions from readers.
It’s an eclectic bag of questions that Breadman addresses, ranging from his thoughts on an upcoming fight to his thoughts on one of the legendary prizefighters of olden days. Boxing fans, more so than fans of any other sport, enjoy hashing over fantasy fights between great fighters of different eras. Breadman is very good at this, which isn’t to suggest that his opinions are gospel, merely that he always has something provocative to add to the discourse. Like all good historians, he recognizes that the best history is revisionist history.
“Fighters are constantly mislabled,” he says. “Everyone talks about Joe Louis’s right hand. But if you study him you see that his left hook is every bit as good as his right hand and it’s more sneaky in terms of shock value when it lands.”
Stephen “Breadman” Edwards was born and raised in Philadelphia. His father died when he was three. His maternal grandfather, a Korean War veteran, filled the void. The man was a big boxing fan and the two would watch the fights together on the family television.
Edwards’ nickname dates to his early teen years when he was one of the best basketball players in his neighborhood. The derivation is the 1975 movie “Cornbread, Earl and Me,” starring Laurence Fishburne in his big screen debut. Future NBA All-Star Jamaal Wilkes, fresh out of UCLA, plays Cornbread, a standout high school basketball player who is mistakenly murdered by the police.
Coming out of high school, Breadman had to choose between an academic scholarship at Temple or an athletic scholarship at nearby Lincoln University. He chose the former, intending to major in criminal justice, but didn’t stay in college long. What followed were a succession of jobs including a stint as a city bus driver. To stay fit, he took to working out at the James Shuler Memorial Gym where he sparred with some of the regulars, but he never boxed competitively.
Over the years, Philadelphia has harbored some great boxing coaches. Among those of recent vintage, the names George Benton, Bouie Fisher, Nazeem Richardson, and Bozy Ennis come quickly to mind. Breadman names Richardson and West Coast trainer Virgil Hunter as the men that have influenced him the most.
We are all a product of our times, so it’s no surprise that the best decade of boxing, in Breadman’s estimation, was the 1980s. This was the era of the “Four Kings” with Sugar Ray Leonard arguably standing tallest.
Breadman was a big fan of Leonard and of Leonard’s three-time rival Roberto Duran. “I once purchased a DVD that had all of Roberto Duran’s title defenses on it,” says Edwards. “This was a back before the days of YouTube.”
But Edwards’ interest in the sport goes back much deeper than the 1980s. He recently weighed in on the “Pittsburgh Windmill” Harry Greb whose legend has grown in recent years to the point that some have come to place him above Sugar Ray Robinson on the list of the greatest of all time.
“Greb was a great fighter with a terrific resume, of that there is no doubt,” says Breadman, “but there is no video of him and no one alive ever saw him fight, so where does this train of thought come from?”
Edwards notes that in Harry Greb’s heyday, he wasn’t talked about in the papers as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport. The boxing writers were partial to Benny Leonard who drew comparisons to the venerated Joe Gans.
Among active fighters, Breadman reserves his highest praise for Terence Crawford. “Body punching is a lost art,” he once wrote. “[Crawford] is a great body puncher who starts his knockouts with body punches, but those punches are so subtle they are not fully appreciated.”
If the opening line holds up, Crawford will enter the ring as the underdog when he opposes Canelo Alvarez in September. Crawford, who will enter the ring a few weeks shy of his 38th birthday, is actually the older fighter, older than Canelo by almost three full years (it doesn’t seem that way since the Mexican redhead has been in the public eye so much longer), and will theoretically be rusty as 13 months will have elapsed since his most recent fight.
Breadman discounts those variables. “Terence is older,” he says, “but has less wear and tear and never looks rusty after a long layoff.” That Crawford will win he has no doubt, an opinion he tweaked after Canelo’s performance against William Scull: “Canelo’s legs are not the same. Bud may even stop him now.”
Edwards has been with Caleb Plant for Plant’s last three fights. Their first collaboration produced a Knockout of the Year candidate. With one ferocious left hook, Plant sent Anthony Dirrell to dreamland. What followed were a 12-round setback to David Benavidez and a ninth-round stoppage of Trevor McCumby.
Breadman keeps a hectic schedule. From Monday through Friday, he’s at the DLX Gym in Las Vegas coaching Caleb Plant and Kyrone Davis. On weekends, he’s back in Philadelphia, checking in on his investment properties and, of greater importance, watching his kids play sports. His 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son are standout all-around athletes.
On those long flights, he has plenty of time to turn on his laptop and stream old fights or perhaps work on his next article. That’s assuming he can stay awake.
To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE
-
Featured Articles4 weeks ago
Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis Wins Welterweight Showdown in Atlantic City
-
Featured Articles4 weeks ago
Boxing Notes and Nuggets from Thomas Hauser
-
Featured Articles4 weeks ago
Avila Perspective Chap 320: Boots Ennis and Stanionis
-
Featured Articles4 weeks ago
Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday
-
Featured Articles3 weeks ago
Avila Perspective, Chap. 322: Super Welterweight Week in SoCal
-
Featured Articles3 weeks ago
TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts
-
Featured Articles3 weeks ago
Gabriela Fundora KOs Marilyn Badillo and Perez Upsets Conwell in Oceanside
-
Featured Articles3 weeks ago
‘Krusher’ Kovalev Exits on a Winning Note: TKOs Artur Mann in his ‘Farewell Fight’