By Sean McDaniel: Although not much has been said about this topic, I think it’s something that needs to be considered. Former WBA super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (42-2, 32 KO’s) hasn’t looked like the same fighter he once was since suffering a 12 round unanimous decision loss to unbeaten Joe Calzaghe in November 2007. The fight, which took place in Wales, saw Calzaghe and Kessler fighting at a pretty much even pace in the first six rounds of the bout. Indeed, it was hard to tell who the better fighter was during this point in the fight.
However, Calzaghe turned it into overdrive in the 2nd half of the fight, and basically took command of the fight down the stretch run of the bout, landing a high number of head shots during this time. While Calzaghe doesn’t credit for being much of a puncher, his shots would add up because of the sheer number that he used to throw in his fights.
A volume puncher by tradition, Calzaghe’s fight against Kessler was no different in that respect than many of his other bouts of his career. Calzaghe unloaded with a high number of punches to the head of Kessler in the 2nd part of the fight, especially in rounds 8 through 12. Kessler looked fine at the end of the fight, aside from some redness around both of his eyes. However, in his next fight against Dimitri Sartison in June 2008, Kessler no longer looked like the confident, unbeatable fighter he was previous to his loss to Calzaghe. Something appeared to have been taken out of Kessler in the Calzaghe fight.
Kessler did not look confident at all against Sartison, and took a number of hard rights to the head from him until Sartison faded in the second half of the fight. If you look at that fight and compare it to Kessler’s other bouts before the Calzaghe fight, Kessler looked like he’d lost something in his performance. In Kessler’s next fight against Danilo Haussler in October 2008, he looked like the Kessler from old.
However, because Haussler was so badly over-matched and folded quickly in the 3rd round, you couldn’t see how Kessler had slipped as a fighter. But in Kessler’s next fight against Gusmyr Perdomo in September 2009, Kessler clearly looked like something was wrong with him. No longer was he dominating like he had before the Calzaghe fight.
Perdomo, a halfway decent southpaw, landed at will with sweeping left hands and right hooks against Kessler frequently during the first three rounds. Kessler’s power, which hadn’t abandoned him, bailed him out in that fight as he stopped Perdomo in the 4th round. But Kessler looked almost shot in his next fight against Andre Ward in November 2009, getting totally dominated by Ward en route to losing by an 11 round technical decision to the American boxer in the Super Six tournament.
At this point, other boxing fans and experts could see that something was amiss with Kessler that he no longer looked like the same fighter he once was. However, few people have arrived at the conclusion that Calzaghe may have somehow ruined Kessler in his win over him in 2007, but I think it’s something that needs to be considered.
Kessler hasn’t looked like the same fighter since that fight and with the huge amount of head shots that Calzaghe landed in that fight, I have to wonder whether it did something to Kessler to make him less of a fighter.
Comments are closed.