Giving Froch Kessler I a rewatch

close fight
kalle already had the belt behind kessler trying to get it round his waist bfore the results were even announced


liq giving every round to kessler lol ok

 

and werent it meant to be in notts
kalle did a bit of moving goal posts for this

 

Yeah, but Froch is a professional and should be ready for this, with a team around him to do a lot of that.

Fair enough, the volcano ash delays made things awkward, far from ideal, but for the actual fight was more a case of Kessler being the better man.

 

Clear Kessler win for me. I had it 116-112 at the time, but great excuse to rewatch this.

The thing I can distinctly remember from this fight was Froch in his corner as distressed as I've ever seen or heard hime, pretty sure he was saying to McKracken 'the jab is killing me' or something similar.

Ignoring the 'volcano ash' travel issue aside, I think it's interesting to look at Froch/Kessler/Ward/Calzaghe thru the lens of home/vs away fighter, as I think Kessler most definitely got a lift from fighting in front of his home crowd (contrast vs his showing vs Ward and Calazghe away from home). This also shows if you contrast Froch when he fought in Nottingham (e.g. Bute) vs Ward in Atlantic City. Obviously JC never fought Froch or Ward, so Kessler is the common thread, and I think you can see that Kessler struggled more with the ring smarts & IQ of both Ward and Calzaghe than he did with the more 'basic' but teak-tough Froch.

I'm not saying Froch/Kessler would have beaten either Ward/Calzaghe in Nottingham/Copenhagem respectively, but I think the intangibles would most definitely have been different, and would have told us more about how TRULY great Ward and Zaggers were. Sure, Ward "travelled" to Atlantic City to fight Froch, but IMO he was still the "home" fighter. It was dissapointing to see him never leave the US in the Super 6. Simialrly, I think that Calzaghe's resuem would have been much improved if he had went to the US eariler in his career and beaten some names in their backyard, it would have answered more questions in his resume.

Great tear up Kessler v Froch I though, was my FOTY that year!

 

How do you prepare for an unexpected environmental event? No planes were flying they were looking into getting a coach to Denmark before they secured a private plane and risked crashing to get to the fight. You can't prepare for such events. It's easy to say with hindsight to say they should of done this or that but fact is at the time they were dealing with an unprecedented event. Look at how badly governments have dealt with the current crisis but you expect Froch to have a crystal ball and been prepared for this?

Now you can say you think it didn't effect his performance but to say he should of been prepared for a volcano grounding all flights is a stretch.

Personally I thought it effected his performance, I thought that watching the fight before I even knew he had issues getting to Denmark. He looked off to me. It made a difference but I'll say it was minor as clearly the rematch was very close too, there wasn't much separating either man.

 

There's no such thing as jet lag or travel fatigue when flying from the UK to Denmark lol.

 

Personally I think Froch looked 'off' in Atlantic City against Ward too (and arguably against Jermaine Taylor for most of the fight too!), and I think a big part of that was not being in Nottingham. Froch is a bit of a narcissist, and he fed off the energy of his home crowd and the adulation he got from it.

So yes he was "off", but I don't think that was attributable to the 'volcano delay' just simply not being in his home town. My 2c.

 

Ward when was amateur had traveled aboard and fought, in pros he turned into strict hometown fighter.
Yeah, he was Olympic Gold medalist and more versatile than Kessler.
Also Kessler is from Denmark, small country and this impacts his evaluation in forums and value in pro boxing business. If he was from U.S or U.K he had been more appreciated.

Ward also didn't fought Kessler again but with Kovalev he had 2 fights.
Not likely because Kessler was so bad. If he really was bad, they might had booked him again to KO in U.S to pleasure local U.S fans.

 

The airports were closed on April 15th in UK.
They opened again late night of April 20th.
The fight took place in Denmark April 24th.

Really, if he let that severely hinder him mentally as well as logistically, someone in his camp (perhaps himself) was unprofessional.

I haven't said they should have forseen the volcano ash months in advance. But it seems to me they used it as an excuse afterwards.

 

Its a 2 hour flight tops

 

He could have driven there. It would have taken a day tops with regular stops. Carl "Plaster Hands" Froch was looking for an excuse and had a ready-made one he was going to use at the drop of a hat.

 

He actually arrived in Denmark on the Wednesday.
The fight was on the Saturday night.
And people using it as an excuse !

 

Kessler was shoulder ****ed and his accuracy was far inferior, but he still managed to slad Froch around.

Calaghe beat prime undefeaed 40+ win Kessler, struggling in the first six and alternatng his style in the second half

Kellerman :" You are looking at a special fighter the way Joe can change his style"

"Manny Stewart: Calaghe is very, very special, the adjustments he's making, he's an elite boxer, I am veryimpressed

 

Kessler headbutted to **** gainst Ward, causing permanent injury, he gave Calzaghe full credit for beating him fair and square, but he was very bitter at Wards headbutting that ****ed up his eyes permanently