Kessler vs. Ward: Andre will open some eyes on Saturday

By Boxing News - 11/17/2009 - Comments

kessler432323Picture Credit: Jan Sanders -By Scott Gilfoid: There are only four days to go before the Super Six tournament fight between American Andre Ward (20-0, 13 KO’s) and World Boxing Association super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (42-1, 32 KO’s) meet up at the Oracle Arena, in Oakland, California. Yesterday, they participated in a public workout at the King’s Gym, in Oakland. However, neither fighter had much of anything interesting to say and were mostly making neutral comments.

Kessler, 30, who comes into the fight as the favorite based on his greater experience said “He’s [Ward] a great, young fighter. He reminds me a lot of myself when I was his age. I won my first world title at 24.”Kessler is talking about his win over Dingaan Thobela in 2002 for the International Boxing Association super middleweight title.

Technically, Kessler is correct in saying it was a world title, but the IBA title isn’t held in as high esteem to the other major titles by boxing fans. Also, Thobela had lost his last two fights to Dave Hilton and Eric Lucas going into his fight with Kessler. It’s not exactly the same thing that Ward is facing in fighting Kessler. Also, Ward has a much different style compared to Kessler.

Ward is lightning fast with his punches, moves around constantly, punches from every angle and is hard to hit. In contrast, Kessler fights in a stiff manner, almost looking slightly robotic as he shoots out a jab again and again. Kessler’s style of fighting is very basic and predictable. His offensive tools consist of jab and a left-right combination. He moves around a little, but looks very stiff and heavy-legged as he shifts position. Kessler loads up with his shots and tries to hurt his opponents when he gets an opportunity.

But because of this, Kessler’s hand speed isn’t good. Kessler points out that he has more experience than Ward and has fought twice as many fights. However, you can discount most of Kessler’s fights because they have come against B and C level opponents. What’s the point of bragging about having more fight when many of them are against lower level fighters.

Of Kessler’s opponents during his entire career, I rate only Anthony Mundine, Eric Lucas, Markus Beyer, Joe Calzaghe and Librado Andrade. Of them, I only consider Calzaghe to be near the talent level of Ward. Mundine, Lucas, Beyer and Andrade are good fighters, but not what I consider to be at the same level of Ward. It’s nice that Kessler fought all these guys, along with all the B and C level opponents, but it won’t mean a thing on Saturday night.

Kessler won’t be fighting them and if he’s thinking that Ward is a fighter like those guys, Kessler is going to be sadly mistaken. I hope for Kessler’s sake he is able to push his game up another level or two, because what I saw of him in his loss to Calzaghe and in his fight against Gusmyr Perdomo, Kessler would lose by a large margin to the talented Ward.



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