By Matt Stein: I just finished watching the Andre Ward (22-0, 13 KO’s) vs. the Allan Green (29-2, 20 KO’s) Super Six stage 2 fight again, and I have to say that Ward did a great job of mugging the heck out of poor Green on the inside in this fight. Green, a medium range fighter, had no chance to win because he didn’t have the inside skills to compete with the 26-year-old Ward. It was like two different styles were in the ring on that night.

On the one hand, you had Green, who fought with a traditional style of firing shots from the outside and looking to block incoming as much as possible. And with Ward, he was like a mix between an old fashioned slugger and an MMA fighter the way that he leaned on Green and basically pinned him to the ropes by shoving and leaning all over him. Green had no answer to that kind of fighting, seeming unable to get himself free from the weight that Ward was pushing on him.

A lot of referees would have broken that action up and given Ward and warning, but not all of them. In looking at Dirrell’s loss to Carl Froch in his first fight of the Super Six tournament, Dirrell looked vulnerable every time that Froch would take the fight tot he inside, which was basically from rounds five through ten. Dirrell was able to do well while moving around the ring in the first four rounds, jabbing and countering the slow-moving Froch.

However, as soon as Froch got rough with Dirrell, and turned it into an inside fight, Dirrell looked clueless, almost helpless and not sure what to do other than to look at the referee for help. The referee wasn’t having any, and figured that Dirrell should know how to fight on the inside. He didn’t. And Froch continued to give Dirrell all kinds of problems with his rough inside game until Dirrell seemed to lose his temper after getting deducted a point in the 10th. That’s when Dirrell fought back and hurt Froch. But Dirrell looked terrible on the inside until then.

If Dirrell can’t figure out how to fight better on the inside than he did in his loss to Froch, then I suspect that Ward should win this fight fairly easily. I don’t know if it’s humanly possible for a fighter like Dirrell, who mainly fights on the outside, to learn enough to compete with an inside brawler like Ward in only three months. I think I wouldn’t even try if I was Dirrell. The last thing Dirrell needs to do is to be playing Ward’s game by trying to slug with him on the inside.

However, that means that Dirrell is going to have to use his legs much more than he’s done in his past Super Six fights and he’s going to have to be able to keep moving for 12 rounds to prevent Ward from mugging him again and again. Every time Ward tries to mug him, Dirrell needs to spin away, tag Ward in the face, and get to the outside. Dirrell’s got the quicker hands, the longer jab and the bigger power.

Dirrell needs to use his speed and not think about loading up. It should be all about quickness in this fight. Dirrell needs to come in slightly lighter and ready to move for 12 rounds and throw fast shots to beat Ward. He has to be elusive and has to fire his punches lighting fast to keep from getting mugged.