By Erik Schmidt: As a German with a little bit of Danish blood in me (1/8th on my Mother’s side), I was frankly sadly disappointed by Mikkel Kessler’s (40-1, 30 KOs) performance on Saturday night against Dimitri Sartison (22-1, 14 KOs) in their fight for the vacant WBA super middleweight title. Kessler looked old and much slower than I’d ever seen him before any of his fights, looking nothing like the same fighter that had beaten quality opponents like Markus Beyer, Anthony Mundine, Eric Lucas and Librado Andrade. For that matter, he didn’t even looking half as good as he did in his losing fight against Joe Calzaghe in November, and I thought he was beginning to show signs of slipping even back then.
But, Kessler’s fight against Sartison was a new low for him in terms of quality performance. First of all, he looked terrified of Sartison from the earliest moments of the fight, giving him way too much respect than he should have given him. Certainly Sartison had a fine record going into the fight, but he had never fought any quality fighters during his career, hence you could pretty much totally throw out his entire unbeaten record. Kessler stayed on the outside, jabbing on his back foot, for almost the entire fight up until the 11th and 12th rounds, when it was painfully obvious that Sartison was totally exhausted and was ready for the taking.