By William Mackay: If Allan Green (29-2, 20 KO’s) didn’t have enough problems with his next match-up against World Boxing Council super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (43-2, 32 KO’s) on September 25th, Green will now have to travel to fight Kessler in his home country of Denmark for their stage 3 Super Six bout. Green didn’t need this bad news, as he’s already in a do or die situation because he lost his first bout in the Super Six tournament to Andre Ward last June and has zero points going into the fight with Kessler.

It’s safe to say that Green probably needs a knockout victory to ensure that he makes it to the Super Six semi finals, but given that Green has never knocked a 1st tier fighter during his entire eight year career, it’s extremely unlikely that Green will be able to pull off a knockout win to make it to the next level of the tourney. Green was badly schooled against Ward, losing every round of the fight and looking badly over-matched. It wasn’t just that Green didn’t have the skills to compete with Ward; it’s that he made mental errors by choosing to fight Ward in close with his back against the ropes.

Normally, a fighter who is getting worked over on the ropes will have the presence of mind to get off the ropes and get in the center of the ring. However, Green continued to stay on the inside against Green despite the fact that he was getting pummeled by him without stop and landing next to nothing. An argument can be made that the Green-Ward fight should have been stopped by the 6th round, because Green was really no longer throwing anything back and was just taking a pounding from Ward.

Green complained after the bout, mentioning being weakened from taking off weight. The excuse may work that time, but he’s going to have to accept responsibility if he gets taken to the shed again in his next bout against Kessler. All the things that Ward did to Green, Kessler is quite capable of doing the same, if not more unless Green brings his ‘A’ game. We all know that Green has good power, but he hasn’t shown it in his fights against 1st tier fighters yet. He lost the fight to Edison Miranda by a 10 round decision in 2007 and looked as tentative as he did in the Ward loss.

If Green can just fight with some intensity, he could open some eyes. Kessler has already been beaten once in the Super Six tourney by Ward, so he’s not invincible by any stretch of the imagination. The question is whether Green has what it takes to get a win over Kessler? I don’t think he does. He has the power, but for some reason he doesn’t seem capable of using the power.