Arthur Abraham
ARMENIAN ABRAHAM CAPTURES VACANT IBF MIDDLEWEIGHT CROWN
Chester Observer Tribune, NJ Dec. 12, 2005
Leipzig, Germany (Sports Network) - Armenian Arthur Abraham captured the vacant IBF middleweight title Saturday with a fifth-round technical knockout of Nigerian Kingsley Ikeke.
Jermain Taylor vacated the IBF belt, and Abraham capitalized on his first attempt at the title to move his record to 19-0 with 17 KOs. Referee Samuel Viruet stopped the action at the 1:36 mark of the fifth round in the scheduled 12-round fight. The 25-year-old Abraham, whose hometown is Berlin, has finished three of his last four fights in the fifth round. The 22-year-old Ikeke fell to 23-2. He was coming off a 10th-round TKO of Antwun Echols in an IBF middleweight eliminator bout in April.
Nelson plans exit at the top
The Guardian - United Kingdom; Jan 13, 2006 JOHN RAWLING
Johnny Nelson has said he wants to emulate Lennox Lewis by retiring as an undefeated champion after he defends his World Boxing Organisation cruiserweight title against the big-punching Welshman Enzo Maccarinelli at Manchester's MEN Arena on March 4.
The 39-year-old Sheffield fighter has not lost a fight since 1995 and has held the WBO title since 1999. Nelson said: "I'll retire with the belt and nobody will take it away from me unless they chop my arms and my legs off. For me to do a Lennox Lewis and walk away from boxing means more than anything to me."
The former British, Commonwealth and European middleweight champion Howard Eastman is to return to the ring this spring against the Miami-based Colombian Edison Miranda in a final eliminator to face the International Boxing Federation champion Arthur Abraham. The Germany-based Armenian outpointed Eastman in a non-title fight last summer.
| This article contains text from a source with a copyright. Please help us by extracting the factual information and eliminating the rest in order to keep the site in accordance to fair use standards, or by obtaining permission for reuse on this site.. |
BOXING: NO PROBLEMS FOR ABRAHAM AS MARQUEZ IS BEATEN
Agence France Presse November 8, 2008 Saturday 10:54 PM GMT
World middleweight champion Arthur Abraham had few problems as he defended his IBF title with a sixth-round technical knock-out win over United States fighter Raul Marquez on Saturday.
Abraham was forced to withdraw from the original fight on October 4 when a bout of flu knocked him out, but was back to his most powerful best to defend his title for the eighth time.
"For a while there, I thought I was in with a good shot, but he is very strong and kept coming at me," said Marquez, who refused to come out for the seventh round.
"I tried, I tried my best and I knew it would be a hard fight, but he was just too quick and too strong in the end."
Abraham is now looking for a big-name fight in the middleweight division and has yet to find an opponent to blemish his perfect record of 28 wins.
"In any case, I must say he is a very experienced boxer and a good fighter, but I am not bad either," said the champion.
"I had my tactics of a slow build up and then raise the tempo, it was too much for him.
"He disappointed the audience, because he had had enough and I can't really understand that, but it wasn't really a problem out there for me."
The 28-year-old was only tested by Marquez on rare occasions and the champion caught the United States fighter flush in the face, passing straight through his guard, as early as the second round.
Marquez was punished again at the end of the third with a brutal flurry of punches and was regularly put on the back foot.
The Armenian-born Abraham, who is based in Berlin, finally pinned the Mexico-born southpaw in the corner in the sixth round with another succession of rapid-fire punches.
Although the veteran fought his way off the ropes and survived to the bell, Marquez had taken more than his share of punishment and his corner signalled there would be no seventh round to hand Abraham the technical knock-out.
As mandatory challenger Marquez, 37, had won the right to face Abraham when he beat Giovanni Lorenzo in June when he picked up the 41st win of his career with 29 knock-outs, but now he has four defeats after facing Abraham.
Abraham is looking for a unification fight against compatriot and world WBA champion Felix Sturm, with the purse reported to be worth 2.5 million euros (3.2 million US dollars).
"The fans in Germany have the right to know who is the best," added Abraham.
| This article contains text from a source with a copyright. Please help us by extracting the factual information and eliminating the rest in order to keep the site in accordance to fair use standards, or by obtaining permission for reuse on this site.. |