Fighting in his hometown of Oakland, Andre Ward pulled off an upset when he dominated Mikkel Kessler in the third and final Group Stage 1 bout of the Super Six World Boxing Classic. In doing so, Ward got the biggest win of his career and picked up the WBA title.
When Ward emerged from the 2004 Olympics as the only American to win a gold medal, comparisons were quickly drawn to a young Roy Jones Jr. due to Ward’s magnificent hand speed and glistening potential. But rather than dive into the deep waters too soon as a professional, Ward was brought along slowly for the last five years.
Saturday night was his coming out party, and it couldn’t have come at a better time or place.
The bout nearly became a non-title affair when Kessler expressed concern about two of the judges and Referee Jack Reiss all being from Oakland. The matter was resolved when one of the two local judges was substituted out for a Swedish judge.
As it turned out, Kessler – the tournament favorite going into Group Stage 1 – should have been more concerned with the man in front of him.
Having never lost a fight in his career but never really taken on a truly difficult opponent, Ward came into the Super Six tournament as one of the biggest question marks. Against Kessler, he became its biggest exclamation point.
Ward controlled the entire first round with the jab, mixing between the head and the body of Kessler. Turning southpaw, he found success landing with straight left hands to the head and body of the champion. The second round was more competitive, but, by the end of the round, Kessler was doing a lot of uncharacteristic holding, which enabled Ward to hit him with two solid jabs and a big uppercut to win the round.
Round three began with Ward rushing Kessler against the ropes and landing two clean right hands to the surprised champion. When Kessler tried to do the same, Ward came off the ropes to snap his head up with a counter left hook. The challenger then fired a three-punch series around Kessler’s gloves, knocking him off-balance. A crisp right had a similar effect on the champion, who resorted to bull-rushing Kessler in the waning seconds. That only resulted in a clash of heads, but Reiss ruled both fighters were okay after a brief examination.
Down three rounds and with a mouse developing under his right eye, Kessler entered round four looking for some magic. And it looked like he might find it went he caught Ward ducking with a left hook to the neck. But Ward pulled back, steadied himself and unleashed a huge straight right that stunned the champion. Kessler clinched but caught several more shots around the gloves from Ward. Ward walked Kessler down and scored with another right as Kessler began bleeding under the eye. Kessler responded by grinning and dropping his gloves but took a left hook from Ward, who had his best round yet.
As bad as things had been going for Kessler, he opted to stand and trade with Ward in round five and lost that battle as well as Ward had him off-balance within seconds. Ward countered a jab by clocking Kessler with a straight right that slammed his head away. Kessler fought back more effectively in the round and into round six, but, aside from catching Ward with a good left hook, the champion was again dominated in these rounds, particularly late in round six where it appeared Ward was going for a knockout.
Kessler tried psyching himself up by bouncing to begin round seven, yet it was more of the same as Ward teed off on his head. A left hook off the dome knocked Kessler back, and a right turned his head. The crowd chanted, “S.O.G.” – Ward’s nickname – feeling Kessler getting weaker every round. The champion tried to clinch more frequently, but Ward countered that with his uppercut.
Between rounds, Kessler informed his corner that he couldn’t see out of his left eye. That would explain why he continued to take clean right hands from Ward in the eighth round, which opened a cut over the eye. Ward targeted the body for a bit, then came back upstairs with a left hook. He continued to eye the knockout as he beat Kessler into the ropes to end another dominant round.
Now cut badly over the left eye in addition to under the right eye, Kessler again told his corner he couldn’t see. They asked Kessler if they should stop the fight, but he refused to quit. With that, his corner told him he needed a knockout to win.
Things didn’t get much better for Kessler over the next two rounds, though he may have edged the ninth with a late rally. Kessler’s corner must have been complaining about Ward fighting in the clinches because Reiss had to explain to them between rounds that the fighters were allowed to punch until he broke them up. But that was only part of Kessler’s problem as head collisions were beginning to bother him too. When Ward dipped inside early in round ten, his head slammed into the side of Kessler’s, prompting the champion to cry out in pain.
Blood began to drip from a new cut over Kessler’s right eye – his third cut of the fight – and Reiss ruled it the result of a head butt. From there, a good exchange ensued in which each man landed his left hook. Ward was first to follow up with a three-punch combination that snapped Kessler’s head in all directions and drove him into the ropes. He went on to blast Kessler with a terrific one-two, but the sturdy champion continued to stick around and deny Ward the knockout.
Kessler was a wreck between rounds, with both eyes being worked on and looking like he didn’t have the strength to make it another six minutes. Fortunately for him, the fight ended midway through round eleven. After Ward ripped Kessler with yet another big right hand, Reiss called a halt to the action to have the champion examined by the ringside doctor, who didn’t take long to point out that the cut was on the right eyelid and signal Reiss to stop the fight.
Ward grinned and raised a glove, thinking he had won the title, but Reiss felt obligated to inform him that the fight was actually going to the scorecards since the cut that stopped the fight was caused by a head butt. The Oakland crowd may not have realized it either, but the fans celebrated anyway, knowing full well that Ward had taken the title with his outstanding performance.
This was one of those fights where the faces told the story pretty accurately. The handsome face of Kessler had been chopped up and battered for ten and a half punishing rounds whereas Ward looked like he had hardly been through a sparring session.
As academic as the scoring should have been, the official scorecards came out a little strange. For one, the judges were too generous to Kessler. They also neglected to score the eleventh round. In technical decisions, partial rounds are supposed to be scored. In any event, Ward took home the title by scores of 98-92 twice and 97-93.
The elated new champion saluted his hometown fans and made his way around the ring, holding an American flag. With the win, he became the first American participant in the Super Six to win.
Known to be a stand-up fighter in and out of the ring, Kessler was an unusually bad sport after the fight. He spent his interview complaining that Reiss let Ward hold and hit and use his head intentionally, choosing to forget the fact that none of those tactics even came into play until the second half of the fight, well after Ward had established his superiority as a fighter.
Despite losing his title, Kessler will have an opportunity to regain super middleweight gold in his very next fight against WBC Champion Carl Froch in Group Stage 2. Stylistically, Froch is the perfect comeback opponent for Kessler as he is one of the easier fighters to hit in the tournament – almost the complete opposite of Ward. Kessler won’t have to look for Froch. He’ll just have to prove tougher.
With the victory, Ward moves into a tie for second place with Froch. Had he stopped Kessler, he would have earned an extra point and moved into a tie for first place with Arthur Abraham. But Ward will have a chance to move into first place in his next bout against Jermain Taylor, who was knocked out by Abraham in Group Stage 1 and who appears to be the weakest of the fighters in the tournament.
