On Saturday night in Essen, Germany, the career of middleweight Arthur Abraham took a major step forward as he scored a TKO victory over Australian import Nader Hamden. Coming in, it looked to be a good match-up as Abraham had won all twelve of his professional bouts by knockout and Hamden entered the ring at 36-1, with his only loss to Sam Soliman (the world's #4 middleweight according to Boxingtalk). During first three rounds Hamdan landed a higher number of punches and dominated from a distance. However Abraham maintained a strong defense and seemed quite confident with his strategy, and beginning with the fourth, Abraham started to dominate with powerful left and right hooks. The Australian was almost floored at the end of eighth round. As the bout continued, Hamdan showed outstanding courage and answered with some combinations of his own but could not withstand Abraham’s strength advantage. Abraham scored the bout’s first knockdown in eleventh round and referee Erkki Meronen of Finland stopped the bout at 1:30 of the twelfth round by TKO. At the time of the stoppage, Abraham led on the neutral officals' scorecards 105-102, 107-99 and 107-101. With the win, Abraham becomes the new WBA International champion.