The Super Six World Boxing Classic opened with a thrilling fight as “King” Arthur Abraham knocked out Jermain Taylor with six seconds left in the 12th and final round to win the first bout of the 18-month super middleweight tournament.
Abraham waited to analyze Taylor over the first four rounds before starting to take over in Round Five and then continually landed his hard punches before KOing Taylor with a right to the chin in the final seconds of the fight in Berlin’s O2 World Arena.
And with the fight, the operators of the Super Six World Boxing Classic came up with exactly the start they were looking for.
The question remains if the Super Six can kick start the sport which is struggling in the United States with the emergence of Mixed Martial Arts. But boxing is huge in Germany, where bouts are regularly shown live Saturday nights.
And Abraham will likely be a strong darkhorse candidate to take the Super Six title – which has each fighter have three fights with a knockout worth three points, a decision victory two points and a draw one point. The top four fighters will go into the semi-finals and then a top super middleweight will be determined.
Abraham remained undefeated and moved to 31-0 with 25 knockouts. But more impressively was the fact that Abraham, who will next meet Andre Dirrel, relinquished his middleweight IBF world title belt to jump to the supper middleweight class and compete in the new event.