By Scott Gilfoid: I hope WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (26-0, 20 KO’s) lives it up and enjoys his fame while he still has his World Boxing Council super middleweight title, because after April 24th, the title will be resting in the capable hands of his Danish opponent Mikkel Kessler (42-2, 32 KO’s). Froch, 32, will be facing Kessler in their stage 2 bout of the Super Six tournament at the MCH Messecenter Herning, Herning, Denmark. I got a kick out of what writer Bill Dettloff of The Ring had to say about the Kessler-Froch fight, saying “Don’t be fooled into liking Carl Froch against Mikkel Kessler because of how awful Kessler was against Andre Ward, in terms of style. Froch is Ward’s polar opposite. Kessler will be hard-pressed to miss.”
You are so right, Bill. I don’t see how Kessler will be able to miss, not with Froch leading with his face as he plods forward. Kessler was dealing with Ward, an excellent defensive fighter who had blocked or ducked many of Kessler’s shots from the outside. Ward neutralized Kessler’s outside game entirely by defending against his shots and blocking his normally stiff jabs.
On the inside, Ward was able to dominate and control Kessler by landing hard shots with big power. Kessler quickly proved to have no inside game at all, and was nearly defenseless against Ward when in close. In contrast, Froch will be coming at Kessler with his hands down by his sides, learning forward with his chin in the air just begging to be socked.
Kessler, who normally is a dead aim shot, won’t be able to miss that inviting target and will be teeing off on Froch all night long. And when you add to that the fact that the Herning Arena will be jammed packed with close to 10,000 screaming Dane all supporting Kessler, I see Froch’s WBC title going bye-bye. I hope Froch lives it up in these next two months and enjoys his fame while he has it, because Kessler is going to send him crashing down to earth on April 24th, and probably send him limping home to Nottingham all beat up.
Dettloff also has this to say about Froch: “I’ll be more interesting to see whether Froch’s girlfriend, who is way out of his league as it is…will stay with him after the fight, when Froch’s nose resembles the slalom run in Vancouver.”
Oh man, that’s hitting below the belt. I don’t know if Froch’s nose will be busted up, but I think his big lantern jaw may be hurting if Kessler’s lands the kinds of shots that I think he will be in this fight. My advice to Froch is to learn how to cover his head by the time he enters the ring against Kessler, because if he doesn’t do something to protect himself, Kessler is going to tap that huge jaw of Froch’s and take him out. Froch needs to cover up and work on blocking some of the incoming with his gloves rather than taking shots with his face.
Comments are closed.