Kessler: “Froch doesn’t fight well going backwards”

Photo: Tom Casino/Showtime – By Scott Gilfoid: The new World Boxing Council (WBC) super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (43-2, 32 KO’s) summed up one of the biggest problems that former WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (26-1, 20 KO’s) had last night in their Super Six tournament fight in MCH Messecenter Herning, in Herning, Denmark, saying “Froch doesn’t fight well going backwards.” I’m in agreement with that. Froch looked bad in getting backed up against Kessler much of the night, and wasn’t able to punch effectively when backing up and being pressured by Kessler. When the 32-year-old Froch would throw punches backing up, he lacked accuracy and power.

This is something that Froch and his trainer should have considered when they opted to box with Kessler instead of using his usual slugging style of fighting. I noticed in Froch’s fights with Jean Pascal, Jermain Taylor and Andre Dirrell that Froch couldn’t fight well backwards. They should have just scrapped the idea of boxing Kessler and just went after him all night long. I still think Froch would have lost the fight, but I think it would have been a lot closer unless he got knocked out. Froch ended up losing by a 12 round unanimous decision to Kessler by the scores of 117-111, 115-113 and 116-112.

What I noticed is that Froch didn’t have any snap on his jab whatsoever. He basically pawed with it all night long, using it as a big stick to try and keep Kessler on the outside instead of snapping it with authority. That’s not how you throw a jab and it didn’t work. Kessler got by Froch’s jab every time he wanted to. Froch might as well have not jabbed at, because it was not effective in controlling Kessler or keeping him pinned to the outside. Also, Froch’s accuracy was plain horrible. It wasn’t as if Kessler was using a lot of movement or anything.

For the most part, Kessler was right there in front of Froch all night long, going right at Froch and trying to take his head off with big shots. But Froch, again and again, missed badly with lunging punches that made him look more than a little uncoordinated. The accuracy just wasn’t there for Froch last night. Believe me, there were some rounds that I would have given to Froch had he not looked so clumsy in missing so many punches. Kessler was much more accurate with his shots and a lot better on defense as well. Froch’s defense was nonexistent because he, like he always does, had his hands low during the fight and was getting tagged by Kessler because of it.

Froch says “I’ll definitely be back.” I don’t know about that. He may be back, but I think he’s going to lose his next fight to Arthur Abraham unless he fixes his low guard, his poor jab and his crummy accuracy. I mean, Abraham will be there right in front of him all night long just holding his guard up. If Froch can’t find him with his shots I don’t know what to think. In Froch’s fight with Andre Dirrell, I wasn’t really surprised that he was missing with a lot of his punches, because Dirrell, after all, is a very elusive fighter and hard to hit. However, Kessler isn’t all that hard to hit, and yet Froch was whiffing over and over again with big lunging shots that missed by a mile. Froch has to fix that accuracy against Abraham or else he’ll likely get out-pointed again. Heck, what am I talking about? I think Froch might get knocked out in that fight. Abraham hits like a mule kicks and Froch appeared to get hurt by Kessler a couple of times last night.

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