By Dave Lahr: Making his first appearance in almost a year, WBA super middleweight championship Mikkel Kessler (42-1, 32 KO’s) looked hardly impressive in beating Gusmyr Perdomo (16-3, 10 KO’s) by a 4th round technical knockout at the MCH Messecenter Herning, in Herning, Denmark. Kessler, 30, looked rusty, missing many of his punches during the fight. In the 4th round, Kessler hurt Perdomo with a hard right hand that sent Perdomo back into the ropes.
Kessler went after Perdomo and after missing most of his punches, the fight was stopped by the referee with Perdomo still standing. It seemed like a bad stoppage because Kessler missed everything except for one glancing right hand while Perdomo was a sitting duck against the ropes.
However, that was par for the course for Kessler, who missed punches all night long and never seemed to really get with it. If this is how Kessler is going to look in the Super Six tournament, I can’t see him doing well against the other fighters – Jermain Taylor, Carl Froch, Andre Ward, Arthur Abraham and Andre Dirrell – in the tournament because those fighters are looking better than this.
In the 3rd round, Kessler knocked Perdomo down with a right hand rabbit punch that hit Perdomo in the back of his head while Perdomo was bent over. I thought the referee shouldn’t have counted this as a knockdown because it was clearly a rabbit punch and Perdomo, of course, was defenseless against a shot like this.
Kessler had all he got handle in the 1st round with the southpaw Perdomo hitting him with right hooks and straight left hands with impunity. Kessler tried to trade shots with Perdomo but many of his punches missed badly. Kessler didn’t look with it as if he had aged in the year off from boxing. Kessler landed a few right hands, but most of them missed or were picked off by Perdomo.
Perdomo continued fighting well into the second round, landing right hands and jabs in the start of the round. Kessler got his jab going and was able to hit Perdomo with a few hard right hands. Perdomo came back later in the round and hit Kessler hard with right hands and jabs. I gave this round to Perdomo to. It wasn’t that Kessler wasn’t trying hard. It was that Perdomo looked like the better fighter at this point in the bout.
The fight was still under the control of Perdomo in the 3rd round until late in the round when Kessler hit Perdomo with a right hand rabbit punch near the end of the round. It knocked Perdomo to the canvas. He got up and was no worse for the wear. The referee somehow blew the call and didn’t waive it off or give a warning to Kessler for the rabbit shot. He should have because the punch was clearly to back of Perdomo’s head and there’s no way he could stay on his feet after getting hit in that spot.
Perdomo regained his composure and continued his domination of Kessler in the 4th round. However, Kessler hit Perdomo with a hard right hand that landed on the chin that hurt Perdomo, who backed up to the ropes in response. This is where it got weird. Kessler bum rushed Perdomo and flailed away with both hands, missing everything save for one glancing right hand. The referee then seemed to over-respond to the action and stop the fight prematurely with Perdomo still covering up on his feet.
All in all, it was a bad fight for Kessler. He showed nothing in this fight and looked not like his former world class self. Previous to this, I had Kessler as the eventual winner of the Super Six tourney. Now, however, I think he’ll be beaten by most of the participants.
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