According to the latest boxing news, former World Boxing Association and World Boxing Council super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (39-1, 29 KOs) injured his right hand three weeks before his title match with WBO champion Joe Calzaghe last Saturday night, causing Kessler to miss out on several weeks of hard sparring. If true, this would help explain the lack of power in Kessler’s right hand during the bout, as he seemed to be throwing it with much less power than he had in prior bouts during his career. Though some of the lack of power can be explained away by the fact that Kessler was missing a lot of his punches, due to the head movement from Calzaghe, hence Kessler would likely want to take off some of the steam from his punches so he could make contact.
According to the boxing news, Kessler didn’t want to cancel the fight because he would lose out on a huge payday, which as it turns out, the biggest payday in Kessler’s career by far. Whatever the case, the injury had to have a substantial effect on Kessler, because his punch output was way off compared to what he usually throws. In watching replays, he seems to avoid using the right at all during large portions of each round, preferring to use his left hand which has much less power.
The news doesn’t change anything, however, as Calzaghe has reportedly told Kessler that he doesn’t want to fight him in a rematch, so the boxing public – as well as Kessler – will have to live with the final decision in the bout. As for Kessler, he needs to move forward and beat the other top super middleweights like Lucian Bute and Jean Pascal, and prove that the loss was just a fluke and nothing else.
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