Baden-Arena, Offenburg, Germany - In a battle of super middleweight veterans, former two division world champion Arthur Abraham (47-6, 30 KOs) had his fair share of trouble in winning a twelve round split decision over Patrick Nielsen (29-3, 14 KOs), who was coming off a stoppage loss at the hands of John Ryder, to capture the WBO International title.

The scores were 115-113 for Nielsen, 116-112 for Abraham, 116-112 for Abraham. There mixed reactions to the outcome, with some observers believing that Nielsen had done enough to gain the win.

As expected, Abraham started very slow, not throwing much and used his trademark defense to block most of the incoming punches. Unable to land many punches to the head, Nielsen began to target the body. Nielsen was really boxing well in the early going, moving around the ring and not allowing Abraham to set his feet to throw power shots.

Abraham pressure began to break Nielsen down in the latter parts of the second half of the fight. By the ninth round, Nielsen was really slowing down and taking a lot more punches, but he was still the fight. Abraham scored what was counted as a knockdown in the tenth round and had Nielsen in some minor trouble.

As the contest continued in the final two rounds, Nielsen was doing a lot of holding and getting warned often for coming in with his head when he needed to hold. Abraham was dictating the pace at this point and pressing the action as Nielsen appeared to be worn down and looking to do whatever was necessary to see that final bell, as he and his team felt they were well ahead on the cards.

Light heavyweight prospect Leon Bunn (9-0, 6 KOs) dominated his way to an eight round unanimous decision over veteran Tomas Adamek (26-16-2 and not the popular Polish fighter).

Nieky Holzken (14-1, 11 KOs) returned for the first time since suffering his first career defeat, with a third round stoppage of Bernard Donfack (23-19-4, 11 KOs).

Holzken put Donfack down in the third round and was going for the finish, when Donfack’s corner threw in the towel.

It was Holzken first bout since losing a twelve round decision to Callum Smith in the World Boxing Super Series tournament back in February. Holzken came in on late notice when Juergen Braehmer withdrew from the contest a few days before the fight with illness.