By William Mackay: Former World Boxing Association super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (42-2, 32 KO’s) got a new trainer Jimmy Montoya to help him get ready for his next fight against WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch on April 17th, in their Super Six tourney competition in Denmark. Kessler replaced his longtime trainer Ricard Olsen after Kessler lost a one-sided 11 round technical decision to young American talent Andre Ward on November 21st in the Super Six stage 1 part of the tourney.

Kessler, 30, is hoping that Montoya can fix whatever went wrong with him in his fight with Ward. However, it’s unclear whether any trainer can fix what wasn’t working for Kessler in that fight at this late stage in his career. Ward just seemed to be a level above Kessler on that night. People can point to the head clashes that opened two nasty cuts over Kessler’s eyes and say that was the reason why Kessler struggled so badly against Ward, but I think they would be off in their estimation of the real problem.

Kessler looked stiff in that fight – as he always does – showing little head movement and not bending at the knees. Compared to the more flexible and versatile Ward, Kessler looked robotic with his movements. Kessler appeared slower than Ward on the inside, and didn’t show the ability to match Ward when he came in close range to land shots.

At a distance, the southpaw Ward was able to easily land hard jabs to Kessler’s head, and tag him with lead left hands nearly at will because Kessler wasn’t moving his head and blocking the incoming shots.

I don’t know if Kessler was having a hard time picking up the direction of the shots or if he just wasn’t fast enough to block them, but he seemed to get hit by pretty much everything that Ward threw on that night. When Kessler would land a shot of two of his own, Ward would immediately land a counter shot to the head or body of Kessler. It was almost a given.
Montoya, who has his own boxing gym, the Montoya Boxing Gym, will have to find a way for Kessler to be more adaptable against the quicker fighters like Ward.

I’m fairly certain that Kessler will still do just as well against the slower fighters like Froch as he has always done in the past, but Kessler – and Montoya – have to figure out a way for Kessler to adapt to the quickness of fighters with blazing hand speed like Ward and Andre Dirrell, another Super Six participant. If Kessler is to have any hopes of winning the tournament, he has to get better at fighting fast punchers.

Kessler struggled in his fight with Joe Calzaghe in 2007, getting out-punched on the inside by the faster Calzaghe. This should have been a warning sign that Kessler might have problems against faster punchers. If Ward had fought Kessler at that time instead of 2009, I have no doubts that Kessler would have lost just as bad as he did last year. And I don’t know if a trainer can teach him enough things to get him up to speed to beat a fighter like Ward or Dirrell.

I think Kessler will do well against Froch in his next fight, but that might give a false impression that his trainer has fixed his problems. But the way I see it, this is a fighter that Kessler would beat under any circumstances, old trainer or not, and it won’t tell us how he’ll do against faster fighters in the future.

At the end of the day, there might not be anything that Kessler can do besides small things like moving his head, trying to move a little bit more to beat faster fighters. It will help a little, but probably not nearly enough for Kessler to be able to beat Ward in a rematch. I think Ward has Kessler’s number.