By Ted Sares – The Prediction – On paper, this one would appear easy to predict, but given Ward’s athleticism and speed, he could well make this a far more difficult fight for the WBA World super middleweight tile holder. Nevertheless, Mikkel Kessler is the super star and Andre Ward is the upstart challenger.
That said, I can see Ward staying on the outside with good movement content to jab and use his body shots and occasional hooks to keep Kessler at bay. If he can do this, he can win a decision.. Joe Calzaghe laid out the blueprint, but Ward is no Calzaghe. And Kessler didn’t become a champion by winning easy fights. Sooner or later, I see him closing the gap as he stalks Ward (who has never before been in such a pressure-filled fight) from the outset using his patented one-two. If he is able to catch him in a corner or on the ropes (or even in the middle of the ring), he will, in my opinion, buzz him–and if Kost and Boone can hurt Ward, Kessler will wax him in the same manner as he did Markus Beyer.
The thing is, Kessler can knock Andre out, but Andre cannot knock Kessler out. Ward will be the runner and Kessler will be the chaser. Sooner or later, he will catch his prey and finish matters decisively.
Both fighters have now done their part by dispatching their dreadful warm-up foes. Now the real thing looms. Let the hype begin.
The Outcome
Perhaps a diehard Kessler fan could argue about excessive holding and a billy goat-type head butt late in the fight, but even so, those arguments cannot begin to detract from a superb performance by Andre Ward. Indeed, “S.O.G.” showed that he was a thinking’ man’s fighter tonight by using every weapon in his considerable arsenal to dominate a flat “Viking Warrior” whose storied one-two was nowhere in evidence. Kessler failed to counter, failed to land his jabs upstairs, and threw few, if any, combinations. And when a stalker becomes the stalked, things can get very ugly–and they did just that tonight in Oakland, California.
Ward threw nice left hooks to get an early lead and then built on it with punishing jabs and slashing and sharp crosses. At the end, Kessler’s face was a bloody mess, but the cuts over his eyes were, in fact, caused by two head butts. Still, the deciding factor in this fight was Ward’s intensity and ability to stay with his game plan.
As Antonio Tarver correctly stated, “the new champion will be hard for anyone to beat.”