First, lets congratulate Ward for his victory. I'm a big fan of the idea that your opponent looks only as good as you let him look so I take nothing away from Ward, his win was in such dominance that it makes me believe he would have beaten Kessler at any point, let alone a point where some have doubts about the shape he was in. I'm also a big fan of not writing off someone solely due to a bad performance. I've not seen Kessler look so hesitant to throw punches as I did last night and I've not seen him lose hope except for a few rounds against Calzaghe. Kessler obviously has a talent that is far and above his training staff, in order to maximise this talent, he needs to find himself a talented trainer who can bring new things into his game. I also think the years after Calzaghe have been just as much a dent in him as the Calzaghe fight itself, being that he took time off, had legal battles, didn't fight any real challengers in that time frame, so he came into this fight severely under prepared. In saying that, he has a chance to now beat Froch, I still believe he has the goods to do this and his goal should be on setting up a rematch with Ward in the final stages of the competition. For what it's worth, I still think Ward has the tools to beat a prime/ready to go Kessler.
His trainer is awful, its long been a concern of mine. I don't think he offers anything constructive as far as advice, and I can understand Danish....its not getting lost in translation. He's about as useful as Jack Loew. He's also obscenely arrogant, his quotes leading up to this tournamet were a disgrace and I think that breeds complacency in the camp. Unfortunately Kessler might be a bit of an old dog to be teaching new tricks.
Kessler looks done. He's one of my favorite fighters but he looked like a shadow of his former, pre-Calzaghe self last night. Not to take anything away from Ward, who fought brilliantly, but Kessler isn't the fighter he used to be. He should pack it in.
I also believe that Ward would of beaten a pre Calzaghe version of Kessler. There are a few hints, such as Kessler's inability to deal with being pushed back or to fight on the inside, not to mention the speed gap between the two, and problems with Ward's jerky movement, rhythm. He's too predictable and IMO stylistically, fares bad against a Ward type fighter. Ward did a good job, Im looking forward to his next fight. As for Kessler, he definitely needs to make some improvements and get back in the ring with more regularity against good competition.
I think judging on that performance last night, Ward would have beaten any version of Kessler. He didn't let Kessler settle and took away the jab, once you do that to Kessler, you can utilise his bad traits against him, like his go back footwork and his less than stellar defense when he's not sparring away the punches due to his jab. I'm interested to see what Ward does from this point on - I think everyone is taking the wrong approach to this result, they're knocking Kessler rather than praising Ward. Ward executed a great gameplan against a dangerous opponent and showed his class. But for Kessler, if he doesn't get himself a new trainer and get involved in some decent sparring camps, he shouldn't bother continuing his career. I maintain that the best thing he could do is use his rival based friendship with the Calzaghe's to get involved there. Joe is still sparring fighters in Enzo's camp and their knowledge combined would take advantage of the things Kessler already has, rather than try to completely destroy and rebuild in the way a Manny Steward or Floyd Mayweather Sr would do.
