By Scott Gilfoid: Last Saturday night’s bout between World Boxing Association super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler and his number #1 mandatory challenger Gusmyr Perdomo was a big ratings success in Denmark, grabbing a market share of 72% who watched it on TV2. Kessler, 30, stopped Perdomo in the 4th round in a bout that took place at the MCH Messecenter Herning, in Herning, Denmark.
Although the fight reportedly did well in Denmark, it probably didn’t do that well the United States. Based on the lack of buzz about this fight on American websites, it would appear that the Kessler-Perdomo didn’t attract many boxing fans.
If that turns out to be the case, that wouldn’t be all that surprising because Kessler isn’t well known in the U.S. aside from with die hard boxing fans and he still as of yet hasn’t built up a large fan base. The fight itself was rather a dull one with Kessler missing many of his shots, taking few chances and getting hit a lot by the southpaw Perdomo.
Kessler did come on and knock Perdomo down at the end of the 3rd round with a right hand. In the 4th, the bout was stopped after Kessler hurt Perdomo with a right hand and then threw a flurry of punches, missing all but one. The fight was stopped anyway in what many, including this writer, felt was a slightly premature stoppage of the fight.
Overall, it wasn’t the type of fight that Kessler needed to whet the appetites of boxing fans to see him in the Super Six tournament. Kessler needed to look much more impressive by coming out gunning for a knockout win. Instead, Kessler fought in a mostly technical manner until the end of the 3rd round when he finally turned it on and started letting his hands go. I personally wasn’t impressed at all with Kessler and thought he didn’t look all that great. Maybe it was the time off from boxing. He had been away for a year before this fight, but whatever it was, he looks to have lost something in the time away from boxing.
In contrast to Kessler’s lackluster performance on Saturday night, his November 21st opponent, American Andre Ward, stopped Shelby Pudwill in the 3rd round in an impressive offensive display of power punching. Ward went out looking for a knockout from the first start of the fight throwing a lot of heavy leather. Ward wasn’t afraid to get hit and took Pudwill’s best shots in order to get his own punches in.
Ward showed better hand speed and punch variety than Kessler in his fight. In almost every way, Ward looked like the more exciting fighter than Kessler did in his fight. However, it’s not a big surprise that Kessler had big ratings in Denmark, because they don’t have a lot of boxing stars in their country compared to the U.S.
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