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This Saturday, Showtime features a 12-round, non-title bout featuring IBF middleweight titlist "King" Arthur Abraham, 26-0 (21), and Edison "Pantera" Miranda, 30-2 (26), in the rematch of their controversial fight of Sept. 23, 2006.
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The broadcast, from the fan-friendly venue of the Seminole Hard Rock Live Resort and Casino in Hollywood, Fla., begins at 9 p.m. ET, fought at a catch weight of 166 pounds.
While boxing fans are directing their attention to future fights involving names such as Pacquiao and Cotto, this one might have slipped in under the radar, a potential diamond in the rough in a battle of unfinished business.
Their first fight has reached almost mythical proportions in boxing folklore because it was held in Germany without U.S. TV and limited press coverage.
Abraham entered the ring with a built-in fan base as a resident of Berlin. It's no secret that there has been a laundry list of questionable decisions served on foreigners over the years, so the heavy-handed Miranda's best shot appeared to be by a knockout.
In Germany, Miranda was simply considered the "opponent." Even the local posters advertising the fight carried a large photo of the champion and read: "KING" ARTHUR ABRAHAM (large text) vs. Edison Miranda (small text).
Then in a remarkable twist, Abraham left the ring with a double broken jaw and a severely split lip, and his face distorted by a battle that could only be described as gory. Yet he still won a unanimous decision by a wide margin, 114-109, 115-109 and 116-109. I observed the fight 113-110 for Abraham.
It wasn't just the judges who were so generous to Arthur, but a New Jersey referee, Randy Neumann, who deducted an incredible five points for fouls from Miranda. Granted that it was a rough fight, and both were throwing bombs from the beginning, but Neumann appeared to be uncharacteristically off his game from the first sight of Abraham's blood and never pulled out of that funk for the rest of the fight.
A Miranda uppercut in the fourth appeared to be the shot that broke Abraham's jaw. In Round 5, Miranda appeared to intentionally butt the side of Abraham's head. Though not very sportsmanlike, as butts go there have certainly been far worse. But I suppose when you're dealing with a broken jaw, it doesn't take too much of a skull to your head to put you in excruciating pain.
However, strictly speaking, of its own merits the butt was no justification for the almost five-minute delay that followed.
The ring doctor wanted to stop the fight as he worked on Abraham's jaw and lip during the delay. Neumann, half at sea, called to the commission table and asked if they should go to the cards. Being the fifth round, by rule the fight could only go to the cards in the case of an accidental head butt.
Inexplicably, Neumann then proceeded to deduct two big points from Miranda, thinking that the fight was going to the cards.
If the fight had been stopped because of the injury, Miranda would have won by TKO, since the injury occurred in Round 4 from a punch. The only other alternative would have been to disqualify Miranda for the intentional butt, hardly justified by the action in the ring.
