Smith can have no complaints after loss on Saturday night…
Paul Smith suffered a second consecutive loss to Arthur Abraham on Saturday night as the champion defended his WBO super-middleweight world title in Berlin.
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Can Smith dethrone Abraham: Brit will take great confidence from first fight.
Smith insisted after the first bout back in September last year that he went into the rematch knowing that he could defeat Abraham after proving to himself that he could perform at world level.
Given the nature of his performance, it was difficult to argue with his assessment and naturally he would look to improve and deliver an even better display to ensure that there was no controversy with the judges scorecards.
However, while he may well have gone into the second fight with more confidence, the defending champion came in with more focus and delivered a dominant performance.
Smith looked the busier fighter for the most part as ‘King Arthur’ adopted his usual tactics of covering up and then exploding into action, and ultimately he connected with the cleaner shots and Smith revealed after the fight that he had been hurt early on by a body shot.
With the majority of the challenger’s punches to the head blocked, his attack to the body of Abraham appeared to be working, but it wasn’t enough to steal rounds as the veteran champion produced the more eye-catching work and rocked his opponent a few times.
Smith can be proud of his performance even though that will be of little consolation for the 32-year-old given that this could have been his final attempt at winning a world title.
Ultimately, Abraham came into this fight better prepared both mentally and physically after the scare he was given last time round, and Smith didn’t have the answers in order to compete with him.
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