Kessler: “I’ll need to be an animal in the ring” against Froch

By Boxing News - 04/23/2010 - Comments

Image: Kessler: “I’ll need to be an animal in the ring” against FrochBy Sean McDaniel: Mikkel Kessler (42-2, 32 KO’s) realizes some of the things he did wrong in his 11 round technical defeat to American Andre Ward last year in November 2009, and has worked hard on correcting those problems. One area that Kessler has spotted for improvement is his aggression. He plans on being much more aggressive in his fight on Saturday night against World Boxing Council (WBC) super middleweight champion Carl Froch (26-0, 20 KO’s), saying in an article at the Irish times, “I’ll need to be an animal in the ring. I’ve been working on my footwork and have sparred 174 rounds. Maybe I have been too nice before.” That could be.

Kessler was totally dominated by Ward, and fought passive much of the time, letting Ward dictate the pace of the fight. If Kessler plans on being successful against Froch, he’ll have to be the one that gets his shots off first and keep at all night long. Froch will be applying a lot of pressure on him, trying to wear him down like he did with Jean Pascal and Jermain Taylor. Kessler has worked hard on his conditioning for this fight, knowing that Froch would be trying to wear him down as the fight progresses.

Kessler may have tipped off what how he’ll be fighting Froch tomorrow night by mentioning that he’s put in a lot of work on his foot movement. This suggests that Kessler plans on shifting around a great deal to avoid Froch’s attacks. If you look at Froch’s recent narrow 12 round decision win over Andre Dirrell last year in October, Froch came after Dirrell all night long in straight lines, and seemed really awkward and slow on his feet.

Dirrell was able to expose Froch’s poor ring movement over and over again in the 12 round bout. Froch missed often with his punches and eventually began to foul Dirrell repeatedly with a rabbit punches and holding and hitting. The referee allowed the fouling to continue throughout the fight without taking any points off from Froch. It’s something that Kessler may have to deal with if he frustrates Froch with his movement in the same way that Dirrell did last October.

Hopefully, Kessler has mentally prepared for the happening. As it is, Kessler is good on his feet and is able to jab and move quite well. What Ward showed, however, is that Kessler doesn’t move much beyond a certain point. Ward has a small square that he likes to fight out, and Ward discovered by watching him that he looks uncomfortable when he’s forced to come out of his range. This is an area that Kessler has to improve on for the Froch fight, because the British fighter will literally mug him if he doesn’t move enough to escape Froch’s clutches.



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