By Juan Carlos Castillo: The last fight of the first part of the Super Six Tournament is perhaps the best fight in terms of Boxing Skills. Denmark’s Mikkel Kessler (42-1, 32 KO’s) is an excellent boxer, counter-puncher who has shown his talent and quality over big opponents, and his lone loss came to an undefeated Champion who made more than 20 succesfull defenses in a very good fight, that is Joe Calzaghe..
A very good prospect, US’s Andre Ward (20-0, 13 KO’s) while still not facing top-level competition, he certainly got the attention of the boxing experts by defeating pretty convincingly a top-rated Champion, Colombian Edison Miranda. One of the problems with him is that he lets his guard in the air after firing an overhand right, something Kessler deal with and was succesfull in counter-punching. However, here are some facts that put the fight in an intriguing pace:
1. Mikkel Kessler is an excellent boxer who barely losses rounds. As stated before, his only loss came in a competitive fight to an All-Time Great, British Joe Calzaghe. Kessler knows how to box, but if he needs he can brawl as well. Followed by a good defense, very good power and good upper-body movement, Kessler has good boxing skills to make anyone a tough night.
2. On the other side, you have Andre Ward, still undefeated, a very talented fighter, mainly characterized by his fast hands, his solid and long jab, but his chin has not been quietly tested, so we don’t know how much will he handle Kessler’s power. One thing that works in favor of Ward is that he tends to throw a lot of punches, not punches with many power, but a good quantity to pick up some rounds. His style is somewaht similar to Calzaghe’s and the reason Kessler lost to Calzaghe were basically two: Calzaghe has an iron chin and Calzaghe has a high-work rate.
3. Some of the questions we may ask regarding the fight are, Can Mikkel Kessler deal with the fast hands of Andre Ward? Can Ward maintain his stamina after being hit by the hardest puncher he’s ever faced? Can Kessler deal with the overhand right Ward usually delivers?
4. Kessler is the Champion, a tested fighter with many many gifts in the ring. Ward, a very talented boxer has also many gifts but there are some questions about him that only fighting a top guy in Kessler will provide the best answers.
Looking forward to the fight, as in the Perdomo’s fight, Kessler counter-punched pretty effectively those overhand punches and made Perdomo pay for them. Ward is a better boxer than Perdomo but is still young and fresh so whenever he goes for the overhand right, If he misses it, he’ll be wore down. Kessler has a good chin, he’s taken punches from stronger guys than Ward, so he’ll probably look to attack Ward’s chin and break his foot-movement. Kessler is not a slow fighter so he’ll catch up Ward most likely after the third round after a couple of rounds of study. I see the fight picking up the tempo early and finishing by a wide UD for Kessler, let’s say 118-110.