Mikkel Kessler Recaptures WBC Super Middleweight Title

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I just turned on the TV for the first time the whole day and checked out Showtime, when I see a boxing match and turn it on and whaddya know, it’s just starting and WBC Super Middleweight champion, Carl Froch, is walking to the ring while the commentators are talking about what a villain he likes to be and how hard it will be to whup him. Here is Carl Froch, who was looking pretty mean on the way in:

Then they show the contender, Mikkel Kessler, a good-looking guy and it turns out they are boxing in his native land, Denmark. So I’m thinking – wow, is this villain guy going to jack up this good-looking Danish boy or what? I decided to watch to see if he did even though I don’t enjoy seeing good-looking boys of any nationality get jacked up. Here is an undamaged Mikkel Kessler:

What followed was a very close 12 round match which Mikkel Kessler worked his butt off to win, even though early reports I’ve seen are saying that he had some kind of advantage by being in his home country. It’s true that there weren’t enough British in the audience to drown out the boos that were heard when Carl Froch was introduced. But it looked to me that Carl Froch was just waiting for Mikkel Kessler to get tired before he would rev up and do anything. Froch didn’t do much in the first half of the fight with the exception of Round 4, when he landed a couple of rights that seemed to make Mikkel Kessler a little wobbly. The commentators were saying Froch hadn’t been using his right much because he had hurt it a few weeks beforehand.

Kessler continued his aggressive manner, while Froch didn’t really do much. The commentators weren’t worried too much about him, saying he had a reputation for making up for inaction and taking control of the fight in later rounds. It didn’t work out for him this time though because in the last minute of the 8th round, Kessler landed a short punch that had everyone thinking Froch’s nose was broken. They thought it would swell up and the fight would have to be stopped. Froch, they said, had not wanted it to go to the judges for scoring.

In Round 9, Froch landed a punch that gave Kessler a very nasty slice above the left eye. For the rest of the fight, Froch tried his best to get some advantage where he could take over. But it just wasn’t working out as Kessler kept coming and the last two rounds were very heated.

At one point, between rounds, you could hear trainer Jimmy Montoya tell Kessler “Do you want this f–king title?” And Kessler nodded “yes.”

In the last 2 rounds, both men were exhausted but fought like hell. The commentators were calling the fight for Froch. I didn’t think that would be fair but then, I’m not a big fan of the “let him get tired” style. I think it was that and the punch in the nose that cost Carl Froch the fight, although he seemed to think it was the venue: “It was very close, I don’t want to take anything away from Mikkel Kessler, but if this was in my home town of Nottingham, the decision would have gone the other way, with the same scores,” he said.

Well maybe not. There were two Belgian judges and one was Italian. What difference would it have made to them if the fight was in England or Denmark? They scored the fight as follows: Roger Tilleman: 117-111; Daniel Van de Wiele: 116-112; and Guido Cavalleri: 115-113. Unanimous in Kessler’s favor. It was the first loss of his career for Carl Froch.

Mikkel Kessler said that he had studied Froch’s fighting style and knew “he doesn’t fight very well backwards.”

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Tags: boxing, carl, mikkel