Kessler vs. Froch: Will Carl lose his unbeaten record?

By William Mackay: WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch dodged a bullet in his last fight with Andre Dirrell last October. Froch barely scraped by with a 12 round split decision in the stage 1 Super Six bout, and didn’t impress a whole of fans with the fight. Froch wasn’t about the argue with the split decision and gladly took it, moving on to his stage 2 bout against former World Boxing Association/WBC super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler on April 24th, in Herning, Denmark.

Kessler, who some people thought of recently as the best fighter in the super middleweight division, tasted defeat for the 2nd time in his career against Andre Ward last November. It was a bitter defeat by Kessler, as he fought his heart out and still wound up losing the fight by a 11 round technical decision. The defeat showed that Kessler has a lot of work to do if he wants to come out on top in the Super Six tourney.

The thing that Kessler can feel good about, though, is that none of the problems that Kessler showed in that fight is something he can’t fix by working hard in training camp. Kessler was exposed more or less by Ward as having problems with his inside game. Ward was able to capitalize over and over again throughout the night on Kessler’s inability to fight effectively while on the inside.

Kessler was almost defensive in close, and seemed to forget all about how to protect himself when Ward came in near to him. This obviously is a product of Kessler having fought most of his career against European opposition, who still mostly fight on the outside rather than taking things in close.

Froch showed little in the way of defense in his fight with Dirrell, and was hit repeatedly by the American once he got his offense kick started in the 10th round. Froch was extremely fortunate that Dirrell started start attacking him hard earlier in the fight, because the way that Dirrell was teeing off on him in the later rounds, Froch might have ended up getting stopped at some point.

As it is, Froch was staggered in the 10th round by Dirrell after he clobbered Froch with a hard left hand to the head. Froch needs to work on his defense, and figure out how to stop Kessler’s hard jabs and 1-2 combinations. Kessler probably has the best jab of all the Super Six tournament contestants, and with his jab alone, he’s very hard to beat.

Froch won’t be able to win a decision unless he can find a way past Kessler’s jab. Froch likely won’t be able to beat Kessler if the two fighters get into a jab contest, because Froch doesn’t have the same kind of jab as Kessler. He also fights too stiff legged to move fast enough when Kessler changes the angles of his attacks.

Froch is mostly a straight ahead fighter who does poorly when any kind of lateral movement is used against him. Kessler will no doubt be watching Froch’s fight with Dirrell very closely and will notice how Dirrell was able to give Froch problems when he moved his feet. Froch fought like he was moving through a foot of thick mud during most of the fight. Froch will have to be able to move much faster if he wants to keep his unbeaten record.

The chances of Froch fixing this problem are slim, however, because at 32, he’s about as fast as he’ll ever be. If anything, Froch will start slowing down rather than picking up any speed. It could end up being bad for Froch unless Kessler stays in one place all night long and doesn’t move. Will he do that? Nope. And this is why I think Froch is going to lose big time on April 24th. Kessler will dominate the fight and win by a likely lopsided 12 round decision.

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