By Jim Dower: Allan Green (29-1, 20 KO’s) has toiled away for nine long years in the boxing ranks, mostly in obscurity until now, that is. On June 19th, the now 30-year-old Green will be taking part in a high visibility fight against undefeated World Boxing Association super middleweight champion Andre Ward (21-0, 13 KO’s) in their Super Six tournament bout at the Oracle Arena, in Oakland, California. Green will be getting attention not only from the United States for this fight but all over the world and will be noticed for the first and possibly for the last time by many boxing fans.

If Green can win this fight, then he keeps alive his hopes of moving to the next round of the Super Six tournament. Green would still have to win one more fight against Mikkel Kessler in order to make it to the semi finals of the tournament. Green is replacing Jermain Taylor in the tournament and is already at a disadvantage going in because he’ll be immediately behind the other fighters with ‘0’ points.

In a perfect world, Green would dominate Ward, knocking him out early in the fight and have boxing fans at home praising him nonstop and getting the attention of his fellow boxers in the tournament. However, the chances of Green being anything more than a brief flame is pretty limited. He may have good power and more confidence than the average fighter but he’s facing Ward, a fighter with a lot better pedigree than him and that could be a problem.

Green doesn’t have the defensive skills and the work rate to beat a guy like Ward, and will have to try and get by on his power alone. That’s not a good thing to go into a fight against a skilled fighter like Ward needing a knockout to win the fight. Green is talking about using his jab to dominate Ward, but I seriously doubt he’ll be able to do much with his jabs alone. Ward is too good at ducking under or picking off jabs and if this is Green’s sole way of trying to win the fight, then he’s going to be overmatched and will likely lose the fight.

Green is considered by many people to be the weak link in the chain in the Super Six tournament. Green may disagree with this, but he is the only in the Super Six tournament that was beaten by Edison Miranda, and it’s hard to see the other contestants losing to Miranda no matter how good he looks. More than likely, Green is going to be unable to slow Ward down and not able to hurt him with his shots because Ward will be able to block them.