IBF middleweight titlist Arthur Abraham will face Mahir Oral on June 27 in Berlin. (via www.boxingpress.de)

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IBF middleweight titlist Arthur Abraham will fight again on June 27 in Berlin, facing German sorta-contender Mahir Oral, according to Per Ake Persson.

The original idea was rumored to have Abraham fight in Germany on June 27, with middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik facing Sergio Mora on the same date in the States. The two, if they won, would then clash later in the year. Now that Pavlik-Mora has been delayed (at best) until September (at best), that would seem to be off. Honestly it might be worth it for Pavlik to just wait on Abraham and not fight until then. King Arthur doesn't seem to keen on staying at 160 for much longer, and I doubt they could convince him to keep delaying the fight until the spring of 2010 or whatever.

Oral (25-1-2, 10 KO) is your typical German Middleweight Opponent of today, a relative unknown on the global scale who has no truly notable wins and serves mostly to keep the titleholder -- Abraham or Sturm -- busy until the next time out. As good as Abraham is, he's only fought slightly better competition than Sturm has, and it's Sturm who takes the brunt of the shots in the media. Abraham is a hell of a good fighter, but being honest, he really hasn't fought a guy I thought was terribly dangerous to him since Khoren Gevor in 2007, or maybe even Edison Miranda in 2006. Since the Gevor fight, he's taken on Wayne Elcock, Elvin Ayala, Miranda in a catchweight rematch, Raul Marquez (a solid mandatory who earned his way), and most recently Lajuan Simon.

It is as always worth noting that the 160-pound division is quite shallow, which is why I feel like it's worth taking some shots at the matchmakers producing stuff like this fight, Sturm-Sato and the hopefully-canceled Pavlik-Mora, because the fights to be made are among the top three guys, period, and everyone past them is an afterthought, and that's being nice to Sturm in a lot of ways, though the biggest money fight at middleweight is Abraham-Sturm in Germany. On the global scene, the fight is Pavlik-Abraham and nothing else.