By Scott Gilfoid: Perhaps the two most talented fighters in the Super Six tournament Andre Dirrell (19-1, 13 KO’s) and Andre Ward (21-0, 13 KO’s) will be fighting on September 25th in the final stage of the first set of bouts in the Super Six tournament. This fight will be crucial for both fighters, especially the 26-year-old Dirrell, who already has a loss from his stage 1 bout against World Boxing Council super middleweight champion Carl Froch.

If Dirrell wants to make it to the semi finals of the tournament, he has to get by Ward. This fight will have plenty of build up by then, because of how excellent both fighters have looked in the tournament. Not much was expected of Ward and Dirrell going into the Super Six tournament, because neither of them had much of any experience against top level opposition.

However, both fighters have performed superbly, learning as they go. Dirrell had more problems in his first fight of the tournament in being matched against Britain’s Carl Froch, mainly because Froch, 32, after getting badly dominated by the talented Dirrell for the first four rounds of their fight last October, shifted into plan B by turning physical and roughing Dirrell up for the next seven rounds.

Dirrell, a fighter who before that had mostly fought conventional fighters, had to adapt to the roughhouse tactics from Froch. The referee wasn’t going to help Dirrell out in this case, leaving Dirrell to figure out how to deal with Froch’s constant fouling on his own. Finally, Dirrell took matters in his own hands in the 10th round and staggered Froch with hard left hands, causing Froch to hold on to keep Dirrell from unloading on him with any more additional howitzer left hands.

Ward fought probably the most perfect fight of the Super Six tournament in beating Mikkel Kessler last November. It wasn’t even close. Ward was just too fast, talented and active for Kessler and ended up dominating him until the referee mercifully stopped the one-sided slaughter in the 11th round, thus giving Ward an 11 round technical decision over Kessler.

It was a great fight for Ward, because he beat Kessler, the fighter that many experts had been picking to win the Super Six tournament. What’s interesting is now that Ward has beaten Kessler, a lot of people have come out of the woodwork to say that Kessler is over the hill and no the same fighter he once was a couple of years ago. In other words, these people don’t want to give Ward the credit he deserves for schooling Kessler in their fight. That’s so wrong. Ward showed massive skills against Kessler and beat a fighter that probably nobody else in the Super Six tournament could beat with the exception of Dirrell, who I think, would beat Kessler even easier than Ward.

It’s too bad that Ward and Dirrell have to face each other so early in the tournament. It’s a waste of talent to have these fighters meeting at this point. They needed to set it up where they only meet if both of them got to the finals. This way we would be seeing the best against the best and not having a case where the two top fighters are disqualifying each other at an early stage of the tourney.

As far action goes, I expect this fight to be by far the best fight of the Super Six tourney. Both fighters have amazing skills and awesome natural talent. It’s going to be like two gladiators going at it. I can’t wait to see this one.