By Sean McDaniel: For a fighter that has struggled to win his last two fights, World Boxing Council super middleweight champion Carl Froch (26-0, 20 KO’s) sounds as if he’s been dominating all of his opponents for years rather than going life and death with his last two opponents. On April 24th, Froch will be fighting Mikkel Kessler (42-2, 32 KO’s), who may or may not be slipping as a fighter. Kessler lost his last fight to American Andre Ward last November, and looked totally confused and lost in that fight.

Kessler has changed things up since then and vows he won’t repeat that performance against Froch. Kessler has a lot riding on his fight with Froch. He can’t afford to lose again in the Super Six tournament because another loss will mean that Kessler won’t be making it to the semi finals. His career will continue, but he’ll have a tougher road ahead of him. Froch is supremely confident about his chances of winning against Kessler, saying “He’s going to be in survival mode after the 5th and 6th rounds.”

Froch also has been using hyperbolic comments, saying that he’s going to “decapitate” Kessler. In turn, this has motivated Kessler, who is keeping that quote to use as motivation for their fight. Froch will have things tough as it is, because he’s going to be fighting Kessler in a packed arena in Herning, Denmark, the home country of Kessler and there probably won’t be too many of Froch’s fans that will be there on that night for the two Super Six tournament participants.

Froch is counting on a lot of his British fans making the journey to Denmark, but it’s doubtful that there will be fans in high enough numbers for Froch to hear them. Froch is a popular fighter, but not in the same way as other British stars like Amir Khan and Ricky Hatton.

Froch is hoping that his power will have a wearing effect on Kessler, and that by the second half of the fight, Kessler will be retreating rather than still fighting hard. Its doubtful things will play out like that, though. Even in losing to Ward last November, Kessler never stopped attacking him and wasn’t backing off or retreating. On the contrary, Kessler continued to push the fight at Ward even though he was taking terrific punishment.

Ward, however, was too fast and too elusive for Kessler to be effective and he ended up taking a lot of punishment each time he would come after the American. Froch usually is the fighter that is coming forward, and that probably won’t change for this fight. However, I don’t expect that Kessler will be in the survival mode like Froch is predicting, especially not when he’s fighting at home.

This is going to be a much different opponent for Froch compared to his last fight against slick American Andre Dirrell. Froch had big problems with Dirrell’s hand speed and movement and missed frequently. It was like watching a hitter in baseball missing fastballs from a power pitcher all night long. Froch rarely hit Dirrell at all unless he had arm around Dirrell’s waist. Kessler isn’t as fast as Dirrell, and will be there standing in front of Froch more or less. This could give Froch the kind of opponent that he does well against. However, Kessler is capable of shifting around and moving to keep his opponents guessing. He may have to move quite a bit against Froch if he doesn’t want to take too much damage.