Arthur Abraham, who successfully defended his IBF middleweight title against Lajuan Simon on Saturday, has plans to move to 168 pounds within the next few fights:
The judges scored it 117-110 (twice) and 118-09 for Abraham, who hopes to land a unification bout with recognized champion Kelly Pavlik, the holder of the WBO and WBC belts who has plans to defend against Sergio Mora later this summer.
"After that I will move into the super-middleweight division," Abraham said.
Abraham traditionally has trouble making the middleweight limit, and needed to lose 15 pounds in the 10 days before the fight.
Pavlik-Abraham is way off from happening, and would come this winter at the earliest I would suspect. A lot of things would have to change for it to really happen, not the least of which is the economy.
The planned move up is not surprising, though. As the article states and we all know, Abraham has had a lot of trouble cutting down to 160. When he fought Edison Miranda at a catchweight last spring, he destroyed him. I actually think it's more likely he and Pavlik meet at 168 pounds in a couple years than it is the two of them meeting at 160.