By Jim Dower: Allan Green (29-2, 20 KO’s) will be getting a second shot at winning a title in less than three months when he takes on World Boxing Council (WBC) super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (43-2, 32 KO’s) in his stage 3 Super Six bout in September.

Green, 30, failed miserably in his first fight of the Super Six tournament against WBA super middleweight champ Andre Ward, who badly schooled Green in a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision victory on June 19th at the Oracle Arena, in Oakland, California.

It wasn’t even a remotely close fight, as Green just didn’t have the skills to compete with Ward for more than one round. Ward quickly discovered that Green had no inside game and made a point to maul Green on the inside and pound him with heavy shots.

Although Green didn’t technically quit, he looked as if he folded up shop after the fourth or fifth round and appeared to be just trying to survive without getting knocked out.

After the fight, Green complained of being weight drained, which sounded a heck of a lot like Green just making excuses for why he looked so horrible. Some boxing fans might buy Green’s excuse this time, but if he doesn’t perform in his next fight against Kessler, then Green will lose a lot of fans and won’t make it into the semifinals of the Super Six tourney.

The good news for Green is that he won’t have to worry about being mauled on the inside by Kessler. That’s not how Kessler fights. Indeed, Kessler really doesn’t have much of an inside game at all and prefers to do his heavy punching on the outside in the form of combinations. Green will have to deal with a whole different aspect against Kessler.

He has a better jab than Ward, and likes to use it a lot. You can’t make a lot of mistakes against Kessler, because he’s very quick at making his opponents pay for their mistakes with heavy shots. One good thing that Green has going for him in this fight is that Kessler is coming off of a grueling 12 round victory over Carl Froch in April.

Although Kessler got the win over Froch, he took a lot of heavy shots in that fight, much harder shots than Green took in his loss to Ward. Kessler may not be able to be quite as effective against Green as he was against Froch, because that victory may have come at a cost.

However, Green won’t be able to capitalize on that unless he fights with more confidence and more aggression. He has to throw a lot more punches and stop looking so timid. If Green fights the same way against Kessler that he did in his loss to Ward, then Kessler will give Green a much worse beating than Ward did.