By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (42-2, 32 KO’s) knows what he’s up against in facing World Boxing Council super middleweight champion Carl Froch (26-0, 20 KO’s) in their stage 2 Super Six bout on April 24th, in Herning, Denmark. In episode five of Showtime’s Fight camp 360, Kessler, 31, says “This is kind of a last chance for me in this tournament.” Kessler was beaten in his first bout of the Super Six tournament, losing to Andre Ward by an 11 round technical decision last November. Kessler didn’t look good against Ward, and took a one-sided pounding for 11 rounds.
The stoppage was caused by two deep cuts over both of Kessler’s eyes. At the time of the stoppage, Kessler was way behind in the fight and needed a knockout to win. Kessler is now preparing for a fight against the unbeaten Froch, a fighter who is much slower and more predictable compared to Ward. This is the type of fighter that Kessler has always done well against. However, there are people out there who think that Kessler may have slipped just enough to give Froch a chance to win this fight.
Speaking about his loss to Ward, Kessler says “My confidence has been tested in the last fight. You will ask yourself what happened. Maybe I’m finished. That’s the thought you have one week and the week after. Ward’s a great fighter. I couldn’t imagine myself in that fight. I was fighting his [Ward] fight and not my own, so that’s a big loss for me.” Kessler had problems with Wards’ movement, his quick attacks and especially his hand speed.
Ward was too fast for Kessler, and once he figured out that Kessler wasn’t effective in fighting on the inside, Ward took advantage of that. Ward had to have seen Kessler’s loss to Joe Calzaghe in 2007, and noted that Kessler had problems with Calzaghe when Joe was able to get on the inside and land. This is where Kessler was no match for Ward. Kessler is going to have to work on that area, because Froch showed that he can fight a little bit on the inside in his last bout against Andre Dirrell last October.
I wouldn’t say that Froch fought well on the inside, but he was able to do some things when he had his arms around Dirrell. Kessler is genuinely a pretty clean fighter, and not known for taking part in the roughhouse tactics. Froch might elect to take advantage of this if things go badly for him on the outside. Froch probably will have problems with Kessler’s jab, right hand and left hook and might get nailed too many times while staying on the outside against Kessler.
Froch will probably then resort to plan ‘B’, which might be him roughing Kessler up. But who knows? Froch’s plan ‘A’ might be him choosing to rough Kessler up right off the bat, and to go from there if that fails to work against the Dane.
Kessler says “My first priority is boxing right now. I changed my trainer. I worked with Jim [Jimmy Montoya\ for many hears and I’m very comfortable with him. I know I’m not famous. I’m just back – better and stronger than ever. And Carl Froch has to prove me wrong.”
Kessler than walks over to a picture that he has of Froch on the wall, and starts stroking Froch’s hair, saying, “He’s a handsome guy” and laughing while doing it. Montoya, laughing and looking at Froch’s photo, says “Handsome guy with a kind of a big nose for a target.” Kessler then bursts out with even more laughter.
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