The fifth piece of our “Super Six” series saw the closest fight yet when Mikkel Kessler became a world champion again. Kessler captured Froch’s WBC super middleweight strap, albeit not without controversy.
The second fight in group stage-two between Carl Froch and Mikkel Kessler took place on April 24, 2010, on Kessler’s turf in Herning, Denamrk, for Carl’s WBC Super middleweight title. These two showed up and gave the fans a treat. Kessler comes out pressing, landing jabs while Froch danced around the ring gauging his opponent. Froch landed a left-hook at 1:51 and a couple rights in the round. In the early rounds Kessler’s landed a good jab, pressing the action and staying busy which was absent in the Ward fight but Froch’s countered well and landed the more meaningful blows, nice rights and one-twos to the head. Both men were jabbing well and the rounds were close. In the third, Kessler started landing more to the body and delivered a strong right to Froch’s ribs. Mikkel was coming forward and more active but Froch landed a couple nice rights to the head and a good one-two upstairs to end the round.
In the fifth both men come out exchanging and Froch landed a double-left up top that staggered Kessler. Mikkel started throwing big shots that were just a little off range, then Froch landed a big right-hook to the jaw. Kessler slipped to the canvas and when he rose, Froch landed another big one-two and at the end of the fifth, Froch landed a jaw breaking right that had Kessler looking faint, Froch’s best round so far.
Kessler came out in the mid rounds and landed rights to the head of Froch then boasted by twirling his glove. Kessler’s hand speed or power do not seem to be what they once were, although he is giving as good as he takes. Froch’s pace slowed down midway and Kessler began loading up on his punches. In round eight with nothing much happening and a minute left, Kessler landed a right bomb on the button stopping Froch in his tracks momentarily, buckling his legs and hurting him. Kessler tried to follow up but Froch used his wiley experience to survive the round, not taking much more damage. This tied the fight for Kessler in a thriller coming down the stretch.
With Froch winning the early rounds and Kessler the middle, we entered the championship rounds. In the ninth Froch took control, again countering well and landing crisp combinations to head and body. More of the same in the tenth then Froch landed a big wide left-hook coming upward to the side of Kessler’s face, cutting Kessler above the left eye. The cut seemed to bother Kessler and Froch landed another big left upstairs then pot shotted Kessler for the rest of round ten, landing sneaky lefts from different angles, which he employed all night. In the eleventh, Kessler came out strong, throwing three punch combinations and then went tit for tat with Froch. Then at 1:15 of the round, they started exchanging wild bombs with Kessler landing a smashing right-left-hook to Froch’s mouth that had him backing up and holding only to see the tide change again when in the last minute Froch landed a barrage of big head shots securing the round on my card and three in a row.
They went to war in the eleventh and twelfth with round twelve seeing a nice ebb and flow with both fighters throwing knockout punches and getting hit with bombs. With a minute to go, they got in a huge exchange with Kessler landing four head shots in a row. Fight ended with Kessler landing a big left and right-hook up top with Froch against the ropes. It was a great fight, early fight of the year candidate.
In a close fight that could have gone either way, the judges scored the fight 117-111, 115-113, and 116-112 unanimously for Mikkel “The Viking Warrior” who took away Froch’s WBC Super middleweight strap and became a world champion once again earning his first two points while Froch earns zero remaining at two points.
I scored the fight 115-113 for Froch. I thought he landed the bigger, more meaningful punches through out the night winning four of the first five and winning three out of the last four rounds, while Kessler owned the middle of the fight. Either way, it was close with Kessler showing a ton of heart coming back impressively from his shutout loss to Ward. Kessler came forward all night, staying busy, throwing big punches and going all out giving everything he had. Kessler was the hometown fighter and he kept it close parlaying that into a hometown decision victory. You can definitely make a case for Kessler but those margins were ridiculous.