By Jim Dower: 41-year-old Glen Johnson (51-14-2, 35 KO’s) showed that he still has a little left in the gas tank on Saturday night when he reached back and knocked out his younger opponent 31-year-old Allan Green (29-3, 20 KO’s) in the 8th round at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Johnson landed a hard right hand to the side of Green’s head in the 8th round that put Green down. Although Green did make it back up to his feet at the count of eight, referee Robert Byrd didn’t like what he saw of his condition and promptly stopped the fight at 0:36 of the 8th round.

Incredibly, Green was ahead at the time of the stoppage by the scores of 67-66 on two of the judges’ scorecards. I had Johnson comfortably ahead by three rounds at the time of the stoppage. Like in his lopsided loss to Andre Ward in June, Green simply wasn’t busy enough and allowed Johnson to bull his way to the inside and pound him.

Green showed no ability to fight on the inside and was eating big right hands from Johnson all night. Indeed, Green seemed to have no defense whatsoever to Johnson’s right hands. He took the shots over and over again cleanly without coming close to blocking them.

Green might as well have fought with his hands down by his sides because he was unable to stop Johnson’s right hands from hitting him. Green did fight reasonably well at times when he was throwing mini flurries, but there weren’t enough of them to capture more rounds.

In the past, Green was often able to knock out his overmatched 2nd tier opponents with these little flurries, but Johnson wasn’t ever bothered by them in the least. Johnson appeared to hurt Green in the 1st round with a big right hand. However, Green was able to take the shot and remain on his feet as Johnson looked to follow up with additional bombs.

The win was a huge one for Johnson, because it now means that he’ll be fighting against someone in the semifinals of the Super Six tournament and guarantees him at least one more big payday at the very least.

It’s doubtful that Johnson will beat any of the remaining Super Six contestants, but you never know. Johnson could be problems for fighters like Carl Froch and Arthur Abraham. Both of those guys are flawed enough that Johnson could pull out a win if they were unable to match his work rate.

Whether Johnson gets beaten by one of those fighters, he might want to consider sticking around the super middleweight division rather than moving back up to light heavyweight because there are more opportunities for bigger fights at this weight than at light heavyweight. The Super Six tournament has created a number of mini stars in Andre Ward, Andre Dirrell, Froch, Abraham and Mikkel Kessler.

As for Green, he goes home a loser and has now been officially eliminated from the Super Six tournament. It’s hard to say what he can do now with his career. He’s lost his last two fights in the tournament, and looked horrible losing both of them. I can’t imagine Showtime having him on their network after these defeats. Green might want to go back to the drawing board and see if he can fix all his many flaws and work his way back from ESPN2 fights to see if he can pick enough quality wins for someone like Showtime and HBO to start showcasing his fights again. I’m not holding my breath on that happening, though, because he’s looked horrible in both of his recent defeats and I can’t see him improving enough at his advanced age to become a factor in the super middleweight division or the light heavyweight division.