Kessler vs. Ward: If the Fight Takes Place Now, Andre Wins

By Scott Gilfoid: On November 21st, Andre Ward (20-0, 13 KO’s) and World Boxing Association super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (42-1, 32 KO’s) will be meeting the first part of the Super Six tournament at the Oracle Arena, in Oakland, California. According to some, this bout will be matching the top two talents in the Super Six tournament and will possibly be showing the top eventual Super Six tourney finalists going at it. Whether that’s true or not is still unknown at this stage of the game, because both Kessler and Ward are still largely unproven as fighters.

Kessler, 30, defeated Gusmyr Perdomo (16-3, 10 KO’s) last Saturday night in Denmark, stopping him in the 4th round in a performance that wasn’t even close to being impressive. Kessler was beaten to the punch in the first two rounds and showed generally poor defense during that time. Indeed, Kessler was hit often by Perdomo, a fighter that only two years before that had been easily handled by top super middleweight contender Dimitri Sartison.

The fact that Perdomo was able to fight competitively with a fighter as hyped as Kessler isn’t a good sign for Kessler as he enters the beginning stages of the Super Six tournament. What this does suggest possibly is that Kessler isn’t as good as some people say he is and is ripe to be beaten again. Though much of his career, Kessler has had an easy time beating the mostly subpar opponents that exist in the super middleweight division.

If one were to look at Kessler’s best wins you would have to consider the victories over Anthony Mundine, Librado Andrade, Markus Beyer, Eric Lucas, and Sartison. In each case, they are good fighters without fail, but in my view none of them are truly world class.

They may be at the top of a watered down super middleweight division, but in terms of talent, I personally see them all as B level fighters. I suspect in every case, all of these fighters would come out on the losing end if they were to compete in the Super Six tournament in their primes and would likely lose every fight they entered.

As such, I can’t say I’m impressed with any of Kessler’s wins at this stage and I see him largely as an unproven fighter. Instead of convincing me of Kessler’s talent, his last fight against Perdomo seemed to increase my doubts about Kessler’s overall talent. In his toughest fight of his career, a bout against Joe Calzaghe in November 2007, Kessler was easily handled by Calzaghe and beaten by a 12 round decision.

Calzaghe didn’t do anything special in that fight other than go right at Kessler and pressure him as Perdomo was in their fight last Saturday. What Calzaghe showed was that Kessler doesn’t fight well when pressured and doesn’t look comfortable when he’s forced to fight it out at close range.

Calzaghe pretty much overwhelmed Kessler with punches and kept him too busy defending himself to even think about getting his offense started. In that fight, Kessler showed that he doesn’t like to get hit and seems to crumble a bit when he’s hit repeatedly, even by a soft puncher like Calzaghe.

For his part, Andre Ward looked very good in beating Shelby Pudwill last Saturday night by a 3rd round stoppage. Ward did it all, showing great hand speed, offensive power, defense and foot movement. At 25, Ward looked quite a bit better than Kessler. This wasn’t the first time that I’d seen Ward fight, as I’ve seen most of his fights since he turned pro in 2004 after winning a Gold Medal in the 2004 Olympics for the United States.

What Ward showed was that he’s continuing to improve in every area – defense and offense. In fact, I’d venture to guess that Ward hasn’t yet hit his peak. Sadly, I can’t say the same thing for the 30-year-old Kessler, who appears to have peaked out in 2007 at the time that he was soundly beaten by Calzaghe.

Some boxing experts would say that Ward hasn’t fought as good of competition as Kessler and will lose to him because of that. I think they’re wrong. Kessler’s opponents have in every case been badly flawed fighters who some respects didn’t deserve the high rankings that they were given at the time of his fights with them. I think Henry Buchanan, one of Ward’s recent victims in 2009, is in the same neighborhood as Kessler’s best opponents in terms of talent, and Ward easily handled Buchanan.

Based on what I’ve seen of both Ward and Kessler, not just this past weekend, I’d say that Ward wins this fight with ease. Kessler doesn’t have the work rate, the defense or the hand speed to compete with Ward and would end up getting a boxing lesson worse than the one that he got against Calzaghe.

I think Kessler is a great fighter, maybe the number #2 or #3 fighter in the entire Super Six tournament, but I think he’s way overrated as a fighter. He’s very basic – jab, left right combination. That kind of style may work against European fodder, but I can’t see it working for Kessler against a top talent like Ward.
Prediction: Ward by lopsided 12 round decision.

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