By William Mackay: Allan Green (29-2, 20 KO’s) has almost everything working against him in his next stage 3 Super Six tournament fight against World Boxing Council (WBC) super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (43-2, 32 KO’s) on September 25th, in Denmark. Not only does the 31-year-old Kessler have the much better boxing skills, but he also has the better work rate, better defense and will be fighting at home in Denmark. Green, 30, says he’s not worried about fighting in Kessler’s home country of Denmark, but that’s just more thing that’s going against Green in this fight.

Green absolutely has to win this fight if he wants any chance at making it to the semi finals of the Super Six tournament and ideally, Green needs to knock Kessler out to ensure that he makes it to the next level. Green has the power to stop Kessler, but he won’t be able to stop him if he’s fighting as tentative as he did in his recent one-sided 12 round decision loss to WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward in his last fight on June 19th.

Green, the bigger puncher of then two, fought as if he was walking egg shells the entire fight and looked like he was afraid of being countered by Ward. Green was hit pretty much every time he’d land a shot of his own, but he was getting hit constantly anyway by Ward, and might as well have let his hands go and gone out on his shield rather than taking a beating for 12 rounds. Kessler it’s harder than Ward and he’s a lot more active. Green won’t likely be able to hang back and just absorb punches for 12 rounds against a busy fighter like Kessler. Green will take too much damage if he lets Kessler tag him at will the way that Ward did in his last fight.

Green won’t have to worry about being bulled to the ropes with Kessler like he was in the Ward fight. Kessler doesn’t fight that way. But he does like to throw a lot of jabs and come behind them with hard left hooks and right hands. Green can’t just stand back like deer frozen in the headlights of an automobile. He’s going to have to let his hands go and throw three and four punch combinations. Green needs to see the fight taking place in three round parameters, where he fights all out like it’s only a three rounder. If he can win Kessler’s respect after three rounds, he may stand a better chance of lasting the remaining nine rounds against him.

Green has got the power to hurt Kessler if he goes all out in the beginning of the fight. Green partially blamed his defeat against Ward due to being weight drained for the fight. If this is the case this time around, then that’s one more reason why Green needs to fight as hard as he can for the first three rounds. It may be his only chance of winning, because after that, he’s probably going to have nothing left in the tank to do much against Kessler.