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IBF Middleweight Champion Arthur Abraham ended the world title hopes of Raul Marquez last night at Jako Arena in Bamberg, Germany, convincing the 37 year American not to come out for the seventh round of their contest.
Southpaw Marquez had targeted the body of Abraham throughout the contest but it wasn’t an effective approach to dealing with the champion, who simply covered up and waited for Marquez to wear down before launching powerful attacks that the challenger was at a loss to stop.
Abraham was just too big and strong for Marquez, 11 years down the road from his stint as IBF Light Middleweight Champ, and that was apparent anytime that the German based Armenian got his offense going.
By the sixth, Abraham became deadly serious and hammered the reeling Marquez, who decided to stay in his corner rather than face more of the same from the champion.
Abraham improves to 28-0 (23) by retaining his IBF title for the eighth time and stays on track for a possible massive unification fight with WBA titlist Felix Sturm.
Marquez drops to 41-4-1 (29), and may have seen his final challenge to a world title after a long career that began in October of 1992.
