By Kirk Jackson: It’s no secret Allan Green is a confident fighter. Nothing wrong with confidence, as every athlete in their respective sport, or every person with whatever they do in life should be confident. It’s important to have self belief, and faith in your performance and abilities. But there is a thing as being over confident, cockiness, if you will. I believe super middleweight contender Allan Green suffers from this. Here is a fighter, at 30 years old and a 8 year professional, who has not really accomplished anything significant professionally.
In recent interviews, Green has gone from negatively critiquing proven fighters, some of which who happen to be champions such as Mikkel Kessler, while Allan, on the other hand, hasn’t had a major impact in his own division. While we all have the right to our opinion, and Mr. Green being a boxer at the highest professional level certaintly has the right to his, I find it amusing how he can criticize a fighter for their lack of technical skills when he has many holes in his game. I can’t honestly remember the last time I saw a fighter continuously look down at his feet during a fight, as he did against Rubin Williams. Im not sure if that was some kind of mental error or lack of focus, either way it is a strange habit.
Most of my qualms about Allan Green are in referance in regards to Green’s career professionally as a boxer. As an amatuer, Green has had a pretty good career.He is a 5-time Oklahoma State Champion, National Pal Silver Medalist, 4-time regional Golden Glove Champion, and the 2002 National Golden Gloves Light Heavyweight Champion.
Allan Green is not a bad fighter, but he has not proven himself to be an elite fighter. In the biggest fight of his career, Green came up short against middleweight and super middleweight contender Edison Miranda. Even though Allan did not get the victory, he displayed tremendous heart as he entered the fight with a colon infection.
Allan Green does have power in both hands and is a tall strong fighter. And he did look impressive in one of his last fights against Carlos de Leon Jr. when he stopped him in 2 rounds via tko. But then again, who is Carlos De Leon Jr.? Green also earned a recent unamimous decision against undefeated Tarvis Simms. But it should also be noted the 38 year old Simms was coming off a lay off, and took the fight agianst Green on 5 days notice. This fight wasn’t overly impressive for Green, as he struggled a little bit during the fight, especially when Simms fought out of the south paw stance.
Seeing recently as the proposed bout between Sakio Bika and Allan Green scheduled for February 5th, to determine who would be the new participant in the Super Six Tournament fell apart, some how miraculously, Allan has been blessed with the opportunity to be placed in the Super Six Tournament as the replacement for Jermain Taylor. So now Green has the opportunity he has been waiting for, and seems like he feels somewhat entitled to, when he takes on the newly crowned WBA Super Middleweight Champion Andre Ward on April 17th of this year in the Super Six Tourney.
One has to wonder, will Allan Green’s confidence proceed over his actual abilities and will he lose when he steps up to fight against the young champion? Will the inconsistency that has followed him his professional career continue to show on the biggest fight of his life? Or will he shut up all the critics and show he is as good as he advertises?
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