By William Mackay: World Boxing Council super middleweight champion Carl Froch (26-0, 20 KO’s) is counting on his April 24th opponent Mikkel Kessler (42-2, 32 KO’s) trading with him and making it easy to land his big shots. Froch, 32, really has no other way of winning the fight unless Kessler falls into his trap and decides to slug with Froch in their Super Six tournament fight in Herning, Denmark. Froch, however, thinks that he can win the fight no matter if he slugs or boxes, saying “I don’t feel like I need the knockout. I’m a big puncher. If the knockout comes it comes, but I don’t like I need a knockout to win.” I think Froch is really fooling himself here. He’s a slugger, not a boxer. That’s what he is and what he does.

I would believe this if Kessler wasn’t such a good fighter and if the fight were taking place in Froch’s home city of Nottingham, England, where he recently won a controversial 12 round split decision over American Andre Dirrell on October 17th 2009. Froch struggled badly in that fight, landing few punches, and fouling often, and yet he got the decision in the end. His fight with Kessler will be completely different. The bout won’t be in Nottingham; it’s going to be in Kessler’s home country of Denmark, and Froch won’t likely be able to get away with nearly as many fouls without losing points.

He perhaps should have penalized numerous times in the Dirrell bout, but was able to get away with his rough in-fighting against Dirrell without paying the price. Against Kessler, Froch will be getting hit a lot more because Kessler tends to throw a lot of punches and has an active jab. Froch is more of big puncher and won’t be trying to out-jab Kessler from the outside, so he’s going to have immediate problems with all the jabs that Kessler will be constantly pumping into his face all night long.

Another problem for Froch is that with his lack of defense, he’s guaranteed to take a lot of shots to the head as he plods forward. That’s going to make it even harder for him to win a decision if the fight goes the full 12 rounds. Really, the only way that I can see Froch winning this fight is if Kessler is dumb enough to fight his kind of fight by going toe-to-toe with him for 12 rounds. Froch’s probably boxing skills aren’t good enough to match a skilled fighter like Kessler for 12 rounds.

Froch is a confident fighter, and sees himself as someone who can do it all – slug or box. I think Froch isn’t a good judge of his own ability. I think he overestimates what he’s capable of doing. If he tries to box with a fighter like Kessler, Froch will lose and lose badly. All you have to do is look at a handful of Froch’s fights and see all the knockout wins. That’s what he does. His thing is to pressure his opponent, land his big shots and wear them down until he finishes them.

In a way, he’s like the super middleweight version of Marcos Maidana. But he’s very beatable if you box him and stick a jab in his face all night long, which is what I expect Kessler to do with the slow-footed Froch on April 24th. He’s not going to get down to Froch’s level and fight his fight. If you know that you’re fighting a guy that is good at basically one thing, slugging, it doesn’t pay off to fight their fight and expect to win. Kessler learned his lesson in his loss to Andre Ward last November.