As Carl Froch and Mikkel Kessler’s heads hit their respective pillows tonight, their thoughts will turn to this weekend. The pair engaged in a thrilling manifestation of all that is good with boxing three years ago in Herning, Denmark in the midst of the Super Six Tournament, and are finally set to do the same again this Saturday night in London, England.
They aren’t the only ones fantasizing about the clash, however. This fight is one of the most anticipated in recent memory, particularly in Great Britain, and many a pundit, journalist and boxing aficionado are already well entrenched in their pre-fight predictions and analysis. Unique perspectives are in short supply, so here I attempt to uncover and answer some of the less talked about questions ahead of this weekend’s battle of Super Middleweight supremos.
Is the first fight a valid blueprint?
When Froch and Kessler thrilled us three years ago certain aspects of the fight may have been shaped by outside forces.
The fight occurred in the midst of Iceland’s volcanic ash-cloud confusion which threw off flights and put the scheduling of the fight into last-minute uncertainty. Froch was unsure as to whether the fight was on or off, and admitted prior to the fight that he had temporarily switched off mentally as a result. Excuses in defeat are not always taken seriously, but when the statements are made beforehand it gives greater validity to the fighter’s argument.
Then there is Kessler’s case. He came in on the back of a one-sided loss to Andre Ward, with dented pride and most likely a chip the size of a heavy bag on his proverbial shoulder. The Great Dane thus had tunnel vision for the first encounter in front of his home fans as he looked to regain his world title status, and that may well have pulled him through the more agonizing moments of the fight.
Each had their own issues heading into the first clash but since then Froch appears to have rediscovered his mojo. Some say he has found a new level, but in blitzing Lucian Bute he simply executed a game plan with the backing of an electric crowd for assurance. He has generally continued to show controlled aggression in the intermittent years but perhaps, given home advantage and fresh momentum from the Bute fight, Froch will again be let off the leash for this return bout.
Is Kessler past his best?
It’s an awkward point to raise when enjoying the build up ahead of a super-fight; is one of the combatants not what they once were? Nonetheless it’s a question that has to be asked to have an informed view of this fight’s outcome.
Kessler took a lengthy break from boxing following his victory over Froch as a result of eye injuries suffered in his defeat to Ward. After more than one year out of the ring Kessler returned with a relatively simple fight with Mehdi Bouadla before absconding for another eleven months. He fought twice last year, but in the first of those he was visibly hurt and knocked down by Alan Green. Next time out he made relatively easy work of Brian Magee thanks to some ferocious straight rights to the body, but could the Magee fight be disguising a gradual decline in the Viking Warrior’s abilities?
Kessler has effectively spent the best part of two years of the three since he first fought Froch on the sidelines, and when he has entered the ring the quality of his opposition does not equal Froch’s. Given the difficulty suffered early in the Green fight along with the passing of time it is therefore acceptable to believe that Kessler is certainly not the beast that ventured to Welsh shores to face Joe Calzaghe in late 2007, perhaps not even the one that faced Froch first time, and thus he has most probably seen his better years. However, strip away the external influences and intangibles and you are left with a clash of styles.
The old boxing idiom – “styles make fights” is very rarely misleading, and punters would do well to watch the first fight back before handing in their betting slips. Juan Manuel Marquez was thought to be over the hill prior to his third clash with what many believed was an improved Manny Pacquiao, but went on to give him even more trouble than he had done in their first two meetings. Put simply, Kessler and Froch match-up evenly, it’s why their first fight was so good, and it’s why their second will likely follow suit.
Who will win the war?
Their first fight was a bloody, beautiful mixture of tactics and hard-leather, so regardless of what you believe relating to the outcome of this fight one thing is certain, and that is that at some point Carl Froch and Mikkel Kessler will pretend not to know fear and let their hands go with reckless abandon.
After all the talking of warrior spirit and the thirst for victory the two have set the scene perfectly. Froch has laid aside any excuses or issues with the judging and accepted his defeat in their enthralling first fight, almost as if training his mind to be the underdog on Saturday night. Kessler on the other hand will be desperate to prove that the first result was no fluke and no result of home-cooking or favoritism. So when it comes down to the gritty clench-your-teeth-and-cover-your-eyes stuff, who prevails?
The common thought process here is Froch does. This is in part due to the fact that he visibly shook Kessler several times in their initial bout, though it is also due to his rip-roaring annihilation of the undefeated and highly-rated Lucian Bute last May. Kessler has never shown any distress signals within the throes of toe to toe combat, however. His gut has been checked on several occasions and he also managed to shake up Froch with a straight right hand himself in Herning three years ago.
You might call it sitting on the fence when I say that Froch and Kessler will stand and trade and neither will budge, but it is hard to see either of these two clearly losing once the fight intensifies. Both hit with remarkable thuds and both are extremely difficult to hurt. Perhaps though, going with recent form and considering his lust for revenge, I would side with Froch in this particular area.
In answering these three questions I predict Froch to walk away from the ring victorious, perhaps with a late rounds technical stoppage as Kessler’s old injury demons crop up again.
There is, no doubt, still more debate to be had before the bell rings in front of an emphatic crowd at London’s O2 Arena this Saturday night however, so if you want to chip in with any opinions or predictions on the fight and its two proud combatants be sure to do so on our Facebook or Twitter pages, or at the bottom of this article.
