By Scott Gilfoid: I got a kick out of Kalle Sauerland’s description of WBA super middleweight champion Mikel Kessler (46-2, 35 KO’s) and IBF super middleweight champion Carl Froch (30-2, 22 KO’s) the other day in calling them “All-time greats.” Froch and Kessler will be fighting in a unification bout that could take place on May 25th at the O2 Arena in London, England.
Kalle Sauerland said this about Froch and Kessler: ”Mikkel and Carl are two all-time greats, two future hall-of-famers and they will leave it all in the ring once again.”
I have no doubts that Froch and Kessler will have a war on May 25th, or whenever they fight, but I don’t see Kessler and Froch as “all-time greats,” unless we’ve really lowered the bar for that standard.
To me, an all-time great is someone like Gerald McClellan, someone with incredible talent, power and speed, who beat the best. Nigel Benn is another proven all-time great, but I don’t see Froch and Kessler as being good enough to fit in that category. If there are certain rungs in ranking a fighter as an all-time great, then I see Kessler and Froch being on the lowest run imaginable to where you really can’t call them an all-time great.
The problem here is that both Froch and Kessler were already schooled by Andre Ward in pretty much one-sided fights and this wasn’t the first time they’d been whipped before. Froch already got beat by Kessler, and Froch also has a HIGLY questionable win over the talented Andre Dirrell.
I don’t remember ever seeing McClellan and Benn winning any questionable decisions, do you? When those guys won there was no question about it. They dominated. Kessler was spanked by Joe Calzaghe and Ward, so that pretty much eliminates him as an all-time great in my book for all of eternity. He got whipped and that’s not what happens to an all-time great, is it?
I do think Froch and Kessler are decent fighters in their own way, but not future hall of famers like Sauerland is talking about. If you start letting the less than spectacular fighters in the hall of fame then pretty soon it won’t be much of status, will it?
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