Kessler-Ward: Is Mikkel ready for the talented Andre?

By Scott Gilfoid: We already saw how one 30ish European fighter struggle against the lightning quick Andre Dirrell on October 17th, and now it looks like we’re about to see a duplication of that bout in the Super Six tournament fight next month between World Boxing Association super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (42-1, 32 KO’s) and undefeated American challenger Andre Ward (20-0, 13 KO’s) at the Oracle Arena, in Oakland, California. Kessler, now 30, was clearly one of the best super middleweight fighters in the past five years during the dead era of the division.

However, with the addition of talented fighters like Andre Dirrell, Ward, Allan Green and Jermain Taylor, it looks as if the division has caught up and possibly surpassed Kessler in terms of talent. It’s not that Kessler isn’t a great fighter, because he clearly is, but the edge that he had over the rest of the division has now almost completely eroded to the point where the other fighters might be at the same level or in the case of Ward and Dirrel, possibly better.

Kessler has aged and hasn’t helped himself in the past couple of years by dining on the softest opponents imaginable. His fight against Joe Calzaghe was a good match-up two years ago, but that’s about the last we’ve seen of Kessler as far as being matched tough since that time. Even worse, Kessler lost a year of his career due to management problems between October 2008 to September 2009.

That didn’t help Kessler’s skills any and it showed in his last fight against Gusmyr Perdomo on September 26th. Kessler ended up winning that fight by a 4th round stoppage, but he looked like a lot of his skills had eroded. That’s not good news with Kessler facing the young 25-year-old Ward, who might be the 2nd most talented fighter in the Super Six tournament behind Andre Dirrell. Kessler looked like he had lost a lot of his former talent in the Perdomo fight and didn’t look on the same level as Dirrell and Ward or even other good super middleweights like Lucian Bute. I thought Kessler looked good enough to soundly beat Carl Froch and Arthur Abraham, but not good enough to beat the other fighters in the Super Six tournament.

I think Kessler could beat Jermain Taylor because of his stamina and chin problems he’s been facing lately. But Taylor’s status in the Super Six tournament is up in the air at this point and no one really knows whether he’ll continue to fight in the six fighter tournament. Whatever the case, Kessler is going to have to fight at a much higher level than he showed in his fights against Perdomo, Calzaghe, Danilo Hausller and Dimitri Sartison, all being Kessler’s last four opponents.

I don’t think it’s humanly possible for Kessler to fight any better than he did against those fighters, so I think he’s going to lose to Ward and lose big. Kessler is too basic to beat a highly skilled 21st century fighter like Ward anyway. You can’t take Kessler’s limited style of fighting and put him in with an advanced Olympic Gold Medalist like Ward and expect Kessler to win.

That’s asking too much of him. That’s like giving the keys to a race car to an old timer and asking them to take part in the Indianapolis 500 and expecting them to win. It’s not going to happen. Kessler is going to get badly out-boxed by the quicker Ward and exposed for being what he is – an older fighter with eroding boxing skills. Like I said, I still think that Kessler could easily beat other Super Six contestants Carl Froch and Arthur Abraham, but that’s not saying much.

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