Allan Green vs. Glen Johnson on 11/6: Will they both be weight drained for the fight?

By Scott Gilfoid: In what could be one of the best fights of the Super Six tournament, knockout artist Allan Green (29-2, 20 KO’s) will be facing aging 41-year-old light heavyweight Glen Johnson (50-14-2, 34 KO’s) in a 12 round bout on the undercard of the Rafael Marquez vs. Juan Manuel Lopez bout on November 6th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Green, 31, lost his last fight in the Super Six tournament to Andre Ward on June 19th. It wasn’t the best way for Green to make his first appearance in the Super Six tourney after replacing Jermain Taylor, who bowed out due to a bad concussion he suffered in his loss to Arthur Abraham.

However, you can’t blame Green for losing to Ward, because he is one of the best fighters in the entire world and Green came into the fight looking terribly weight drained. You hear that excuse made a lot by fighters when searching for an excuse for an embarrassing loss. But in Green’s case, he really was weight drained and you could see it by just looking at how emaciated his face and upper body was for the fight. He had lost not only fat and water weight in getting down to the 168 pound limit, but a significant amount of muscle.

This left Green too weak to compete with Ward and he ended up getting bullied by Ward for 12 rounds, spending a lot of the fight pinned with his back against the ropes taking punishment. Supposedly, Green has got a nutritionist to help him make weight the correct way for his fight next month against Johnson. If Green takes the weight off the right way, he should have no problems making the weight and beating Johnson. For his part, Johnson hasn’t fought at light heavyweight in almost 10 years.

Johnson struggles just to make light heavyweight nowadays and his choice by Showtime to replace Mikkel Kessler. Johnson looked terrible in his last fight against IBF light heavyweight champion Tavoris Cloud in August. Johnson appears to have been selected because the other available super middleweight contenders are unrecognizable to the average fan, which is why Johnson has been selected, even though he’s struggling to make light heavyweight and has lost two out of his last three fights. The winner of this fight will move into the semifinals of the tourney.

For Green to beat Johnson, he’s going to have to up his work rate a notch or two. He won’t be able to count on taking Johnson out with one big shot or a flurry of power punches like he’s done with many of the B level fighters that he built his record on. And Johnson is going to have to throw with more power. he looked weight drained against Cloud and spent the entire fight slapping Cloud because he looked weak. The real question here is how weak will Johnson be from melting down to the 168 limit. He could be significantly weakened enough for Green to take advantage of the situation by beating up on the aging light heavyweight.

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