Trainer Joe Gallagher says Paul Smith will lay everything on the line tomorrow night to rip the WBO World Super Middleweight title from Arthur Abraham at the O2 World in Berlin, live on Sky Sports.
Smith is back in Germany for a rematch with Abraham following their controversial first fight in Kiel in September, where lopsided scorecards led to a second crack for the Liverpool favourite.
Gallagher has been thrilled with the preparation for his 32 year old fighter who equipped himself so well in the first encounter, but he believes that with so much on the line for both fighters, there will be no doubt in the result this time.
“We have a game plan of course but there has to be more thrust and guns blazing this time because it’s win or bust,” said Gallagher. “Abraham will come to prove a point. He’s on a new TV network over here, he will want to win convincingly and to do that he’ll leave himself open at times and give Paul the opportunity to expose the weaknesses that he has, but at the same time, shooting from the hip as they say, there are gaps in Paul’s armour that Arthur will look to attack.
“I thought we might have nicked the first fight by a round, drawn or lost by a round. I couldn’t believe the cards and I have watched the fight back, Paul threw more jabs and more punches in the fight, and we can’t leave it to the judges this time. Paul has to go in there and give it hell for leather, constant tapping will crack the rock and that’s what we are hoping to do. It’s very hard to get a points decision over here, the record books show that, but Paul has had great training, we’ve been over to the MGM gym in Marbella to get out of England and break it up a little, we brought Chris Eubank Jr in for sparring along with David Brophy to add some nastiness and intensity to the sparring so I feel that we’ve covered all corners in the preparation and now Paul has to go out there and execute it.”
Smith tipped the scales at 75.1kgs with the champion scaling 76.1kgs in front of a huge army of fans from England in town to see both Smith and Leeds’ Featherweight sensation Josh Warrington (58kgs) who takes on Edwin Tellez (56kg) in an eight-rounder as he prepares for his WBC International title and World title eliminator clash with Dennis Tubieron in Leeds on April 4.
