Andre Ward will beat Kessler ...

Wrong.

Mundine and Ward are comparable because they are both physically gifted fighters who have advantages over 90% of their competition owing to those physical advantages. Both box with a slightly modified textbook style, both throw in combinations and both use an in-out approach, relying on their footwork to get them out of trouble, as while they can both catch punches in their gloves, they're not as confident in this as more traditional defenders.

The reason Mundine isn't an olympic gold medalist is because he took boxing up after a very storied career in Rugby League, where he was a representative grade footballer and one of the better players before his shock move to boxing. He could have boxed in the Olympics and judging by his abilities against Sven Ottke before getting cold cocked, he has a style that would compete well in amateur ranks.

As a pro, Mundine has proven himself more than Ward against more proven competition. Ward may prove to be a better boxer than Mundine, but lets wait until he spends the better part of five years ranked at #3-#4 at SMW like Mundine was before we make this assessment.

 

agreed.

granted andre doesnt have the resume, its clear that this will be robo-kess' toughest fight since slappy. i see a clear decision for ward.

 

Kessler should rightfully be favored to win the fight. However, it is a dangerous fight for him. He can be a bit too robotic at times. And Ward is probably the best equipped of anyone in the tournament to take advantage of that with speed, elusiveness, angles, etc.

Ward's chin is a question mark based on early performances, but, as his comp has stepped up and as he moved up in weight, it hasn't been seen for a while. Even if he is "chinny", I'm not sure Kessler will be the one in the tournament to test Ward's chin.

 

Like I said )) Mundine and Ward have obvious similarities. I just think Mundine isn`t as good a fighter as Ward. Whether or not Mundine could have been an olympic gold-medalist boxer I don´t know, but he did not win anything and he picked up boxing at a very late age. And he lost to Manny Siaca, Ottke, Kessler at SMW and later on Kessler was a mandatory to Mundine`s title but Mundine choose to move down to MW and give up his title cause he did not want to face Kessler again.

 

Man, JC had one hell of a beard, especially at 168. Thanks for the gifs kess.dk

 

i think ward will race into an early lead, but kess will catch up with him and take him out or win a hard fought decision

 

Wrong. Ward might trouble Kessler early but after Kessler gets his timing down his power will start to tell. He'll start landing more and get more and more aggressive until eventually Ward is KO'd in the 10th round.

 

I just watched Wards fight with Miranda and Kessler's fight with Calzaghe. Ward is a skillful boxer, and he should give Kessler problems. It ought to be a close fight, but Kessler has the power, speed and skill to win by clear decision or late stoppage. I also have a feeling that Kessler is coming into this tournament with a very dangerous mentality (for his opponents). He lost for the first time in his pro career and has been starved of proper challengers for two years now. I think he's ready to destroy some mother****ers.

 

Heh, Kessler fought one of the greats in Calzaghe. Calzaghe didn't reduce Kessler to nothing more than a good fighter that wasn't as good as Calzaghe is/was. Ward exposing him is a joke i'm sure that's the whole meaning of this Thread.

 

Not for all the tea in china.

 

nothing in the super 6 will surprise me..

all of these guys are unproven as **** imo... i live & die by that statement

 

Always bet on black.... :roll:

 

I would not be surprised at all if Ward beat him. Kessler has not looked good lately and even before that, I wasn't too impressed with him. He's basically a 1+2 fighter with no head movement.

Even though Ward is inexperienced, he's fighting at home, and has the skills to execute a good game plan, which should be to keep away from Kessler's right hand, then there's a good chance that he wins the fight.