By Jim Dower: Should there be a replacement for Allan Green in the Super Six tournament?
We’ve already seen one fighter bow out of the Super Six tournament when Jermain Taylor, after being brutally knocked out by Arthur Abraham in their stage 1 Super Six tourney fight last October. Taylor was in bad shape going into the tournament having been stopped by Kelly Pavlik and Carl Froch.
It’s a wonder that Taylor was chosen at all. It’s obvious he was selected because he was the best known fighter of the tournament, at least in the United States. However, Taylor’s replacement, 30-year-old Allan Green (29-2, 20 KO’s), may end up being just as bad a pick before the Super Six tournament is over. Green was totally dominated by Ward last Saturday night in a 12 round unanimous decision lost in Oakland, California.
Green didn’t win one round in the fight. Worse than that, he didn’t come close to winning one round in the bout. Other than the first round, which Ward threw few punches, Green did very little. He just seemed paralyzed by the moment, looking way out of his league. However, in looking at the almost complete absence of quality opponents on Green’s resume coming into the Super Six tournament, it’s really not that surprising that he was beaten so soundly by Ward.
The best fighters on Green’s resume were Edison Miranda and Tarvis Simms, and Green looked horrible against both of them. Sure, Green mentioned that he had a good portion of his colon removed shortly before his fight against Miranda, but what was his excuse for looking so average against Simms? Green’s colon couldn’t have still been bothering him two years later when he fought Simms in October 2009.
Green’s record was nice when you would take a quick glance at it, but if you looked for actual quality opponents on there and ignored the wins over 2nd tier fighters, all you could see is that Green had a 1-1 record going into the Super Six tournament. I only counted his fights against Miranda and Simms. It shouldn’t have been any surprise to Showtime that Green was easily beaten by Ward, because his past experience suggested that he would be in way over his head in that fight and sure enough, he was.
But things won’t be getting any easier for Green in his second and likely last fight of the Super Six tournament when he meets Mikkel Kessler in September. Kessler hasn’t been looking all that great lately since he entered the Super Six tournament, but he looked a heck of a lot better than Green did in his fight with Ward. I have a bad feeling about the Kessler-Green fight and I think I see another one-sided mismatch coming on.
I don’t know if Showtime doesn’t care about that or not, but maybe they might be a better off trying to get someone like Sakio Bika or Librado Andrade to step in and take Green’s place. I know Kessler had already easily beaten Andrade years ago in 2007, but the fight was at least entertaining for 12 rounds because of the pressure that Andrade kept putting on Kessler. I don’t see the Kessler-Green fight as being anything other than a mismatch. This is why I’d like to see a replacement for Green in the tourney before it’s too late.
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