By Scott Gilfoid: I hope WBA super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (46-2, 35 KO’s) knows what he’s gotten himself into by agreeing to fight IBF super middleweight champion Carl Froch (30-2, 22 KO’s) in the UK at the O2 Arena in London, England.
If we learned anything from watching the talented Andre Dirrell attempt to win a fight against Froch in the UK, we saw that you a visiting fighter may have to go beyond the norm to escape with a win. Dirrell dominated the first five rounds of that fight, and then thrown on the canvas by Froch in front of the referee without points being taken away.
The remainder of the fight continued to be dominated by Dirrell with continuing to foul without having one point taken away. At the end of the fight, Froch was given the decision and Dirrell went home the loser despite having fought a beautiful fight.
I hope for Kessler’s sake that he’s ready to try and stop Froch or at least knock him down two or three times because it might take that kind of performance to ensure that he gets the win. I hope Kessler doesn’t expect Froch’s British fans to give him any sympathy if he gets jobbed because they’ll likely see him as the loser.
It seems like most Brits see the Froch-Dirrell fight differently from boxing fans from the rest of the world. While Brits think Froch definitely beat Dirrell, the rest of the world pretty much had Dirrell easily winning the fight by a lopsided decision.
The only way I see Kessler beating Froch is for him to beat him at his own game by going after him and beating the stuffing out of him in every exchange to where Froch is seen as the one skittering away to safety.
Froch said “I will throw punches at him from the first bell and honestly I think that will be too much for him to handle.”
Froch has been talking about going from throwing two-punch combos to six-punch combos like he threw against Lucian Bute. Froch thinks he can get the better of Kessler using the same plan as he used against Bute in a one-size fits all approach.
All I got to say about that is if Froch tries that strategy against Kessler, then he’s going to be picking himself off the canvas again and again. I just hope the judges give the decision to the right guy because it’s going to look bad if Froch is given a win after he’s been knocked down three or four times.
Comments are closed.