By Ted Ringer: It’s no secret that World Boxing Council super middleweight champion Carl Froch (26-0, 20 KO’s) plans on taking the fight to former WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (42-2, 32 KO’s) next Saturday in their stage 2 Super Six tournament fight, in Herning, Denmark.

Froch, who is riding high of his important wins over Jean Pascal, Jermain Taylor and Andre Dirrell in his last three fights, is making it known that he plans on going right after Kessler on April 24th and will be looking to take him out as fast as he can.

Froch, 32, says he wants to “decapitate” Kessler, his friend, and send him into retirement. What a thoughtful gesture. However, Froch’s plan of attack and overall fighting style is almost completely identical with the vast majority of Kessler’s opponents during his 12 year pro career. Kessler seems to be at his very best against slow fighters like Froch, who right at him trying to take him out. Froch’s style of fighting is almost identical to recent Kessler victims Danilo Haussler and Librado Andrade.

In fact, Froch might be even slower in terms of hand speed than either Haussler or Andrade. Although Froch has the better chin than Haussler, he’s probably not any faster than him. Andrade and Froch are probably about the same in their ability to absorb punishment. Froch’s aggressive style of fighting could be his downfall against Kessler. That’s the wrong style to use against Kessler, who likes to shift around the ring, jabbing and landing from the distance. Kessler is the faster fighter with the better technical skills compared to Froch.

The way to beat Kessler is by using speed and in an out attacks like Joe Calzaghe and Andre Ward used in their wins over Kessler. They didn’t just go after Kessler and try to overwhelm him with power like Froch will likely do. Instead, they focused on using their hand speed and tactical precision attacks to get the better of the Danish fighter. I think Froch may be kidding himself if he thinks that he’s going to be able to rush Kessler and overwhelm him with power punches.

If Froch uses that approach, Kessler will easily pick him off with jabs and fast punches to make Froch looks slow and clumsy.

Froch tends to give away a lot of rounds in the opening part of his fights. Indeed, he started slow against his last three opponents, Pascal, Taylor and Dirrell, giving away a lot of rounds and needing to rally in a dramatic way in the second half of his fights with them. If Froch starts out in the same way against Kessler, I don’t think he’ll be able to pull it out in the second half like he did in his last three fights. Kessler doesn’t fade and remains very relaxed in the second half of his fights. In a way, Kessler is a like a machine – he keeps pumping out the jab and firing right hands in a methodical manner and it has a wearing effect on his opponents, especially the ones that attack constantly.

Kessler is vulnerable to getting hit with right hands, but he only usually only gets hit by faster punchers. The slower types like Haussler rarely landed anything against him. This could be the case for Froch next Saturday night in Herning. Froch is really slow and tends to throw long punches, the kind that Kessler is very good at picking off.