Ward-Kessler: Look for Andre to make Mikkel look old – Prediction

By Scott Gilfoid: Every fighter has to get old sooner or later. Usually they get out of the sport of boxing long before the start to age, because most fighters tend to have short careers. Tomorrow night, WBA super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler will be feeling the effects of father time when he takes on the new blood in the super middleweight division with the young 25-year-old unbeaten American Andre Ward in their Super Six tourney fight at the Oracle Arena, in Oakland, California.

Kessler, 30, appears to have slipped a couple of notches with his year off from boxing, looking slower, older and much more hittable than he was a year ago. That’s going to be a problem for Kessler, because he needs to be young and at the top of his game for him to compete with the young, talented, fast Ward. In terms of talent, Ward may be the most gifted fighter in the entire Super Six tournament next to fellow American Andre Dirrell.

Between the two of them, they make the make the terrible tandem and are almost impossible to beat, aside from losing by deeply controversial decisions in foreign lands. This fight won’t be in Europe, and there won’t be any question marks for it, because Ward is going to beat Kessler like a bad habit and take his World Boxing Association title from him. It won’t be all that easy, because Kessler has a lot of pride and has an excellent jab and right hand working for him.

But what Kessler doesn’t have is hand speed or movement. He moves rather sluggishly, somewhat faster than the slow moving Carl Froch, but not that much faster. In contrast, Ward is like lightning, he moves with grace and blinding speed around the ring, and reminds me of a gazelle with his quick movements. On top of that, Ward is very unpredictable and hard to figure out with his punching angles.

In his fights with Edison Miranda and Shelby Pudwill, Ward punched from all different angles with a variety of different shots. It was amazing to watch him, because Ward had punches for every situation and he was impossible to predict where he would be punching from next. And I’m just the viewer. I can’t imagine having to be in the ring with him trying to fight him. I feel sorry for Kessler.

Kessler doesn’t stand a chance in this fight and he’s going to be in deep trouble with the bell rings tomorrow night. Kessler seems to think he’s going to win, but he’s in for a big surprise when the punches start flying. Kessler looks to have a slight height advantage over Ward, even though both fighters are listed at 6′1″. It won’t matter. Ward will negate the tiny height disadvantage and batter Kessler for 12 rounds.

Ward may even score a knockout if Kessler tries to press the matter and trade shots with him. I see Kessler getting frustrated much in the same way that Froch did in his fight with Andre Dirrell and possibly start to foul. If Kessler does that, look for Ward to take his head off at the shoulders with his power shots. Ward will be the harder puncher of the two tomorrow night.

Prediction: Ward by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision.

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