By Bart Barry, 15Rounds.com
“Don’t be afraid of the player with a good grip and a bad swing. Don’t be afraid of a player with a bad grip and a good swing. The player to beware of is the one with the bad grip and the bad swing. If he’s reached your level, he has grooved his faults and knows how to score.” – Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book
That comes from a short but sage hardback of golf instruction. Harvey Penick was a Texas club pro who taught hall of famers Ben Crenshaw, Tom Kite and Betsy Rawls how to play. There are more than a few parallels between golf and boxing, and Penick’s warning is one that pertains well to Carl Froch. Beware the world champion who delivers punches awkwardly as he stands; if he’s got to this level, he’s somehow better than he looks.
Saturday, though, Froch wasn’t quite good enough.
In an outstanding fight broadcast from Denmark as part of Showtime’s “Super Six” tournament, and in defiance of an Icelandic volcano, Mikkel Kessler took Carl Froch’s WBC super middleweight title by unanimous decision. The official result was fair if imbalanced. Judge Guido Cavalleri’s 115-113 card was right. The others – 116-112 and 117-111 – were progressively less so.
My card did not concur with the official result. I had it 116-114 for Froch, to whom I awarded rounds 1, 4, 5, 9, 10 and 11. I gave Kessler rounds 2, 6, 7 and 8. I had rounds 3 and 12 even. But if you gave the rounds that were close enough to be even to Kessler, my card was a draw. If you gave Kessler the first round, too, my card was the same as Cavalleri’s. I’ll not file any protests.
Nor will Carl Froch. That’s both troubling and reassuring. The former WBC champ was yielding in his post-fight interview, conceding that he’d not “put it on (Kessler) more,” that he’d “sat back a little bit,” and that he might have been tardy in “biting down on (his) gumshield.” It did not escape Froch that, after the fifth round, it was his fight if he wanted it badly enough.
Froch’s post-fight demeanor also reassured, though, because of the dignity he showed in defeat. It was not a challenge to Froch’s class to fear what might be uttered by an expressively proud man who’d just lost his title in a close fight on foreign soil. Or, for the Yanks in attendance: Does anyone think Floyd Mayweather will react so temperately if his first loss happens that way Saturday night?
Froch was not stunned by losing to Mikkel Kessler. It seems Kessler was the man Froch had circled in his mind as one who might be worthy of vanquishing him. Froch may have seen that Kessler was “quite conclusively outboxed” by Andre Ward, but he didn’t absorb it. He didn’t infer the possibility Kessler was not the same man he’d been a couple years ago.
Because Kessler is not that guy any more. He is no longer the agent of a classic 1-2 that battered Librado Andrade in 2007. As noticed immediately by Antonio Tarver – a fantastic new commentator, by the way – Kessler no longer blasts you with his 2, a straight right cross. Now it’s alternately looped and pushed. Among Kessler’s best punches Saturday was a right hand in round 7 that landed to the back of Froch’s head. Froch is awkward, yes, but a prime Kessler never floated his right elbow enough to hit someone there.
Unsurprisingly, Kessler’s power has gone with his form. His most effective punches Saturday were the ones Froch ran into. Kessler won on determination and hustle. He outworked Froch. He did not outhit him. Kessler used Froch’s momentum to supply his power, the sort of power Kessler once had from a standing start.
There are no standing starts for Froch. So here comes another golf analogy. Carl Froch throws right crosses the way Gary Player used to hit fairway woods. He crosses over. Froch commits all of his weight, all of his person, to the right hand. He starts in an orthodox stance and finishes as a southpaw. If he doesn’t hit you with the right cross, he fires a left hand while correcting his stance, then tries the cross-over right again. It’s combination punching in its most awkward sense and hardly what you’d teach a beginner.
How the hell does it work, then? Partially because it’s planned, partially because Froch believes in it, and partially because combination punching – however it’s accomplished – is never a bad thing. Froch’s stellar run as an amateur makes him the embodiment of Penick’s warning: He has a bad grip and a bad swing, but he’s grooved it. He knows how to score.
He also knows a way to keep you from scoring. How does he barge into a puncher like Kessler’s wheelhouse, arms dangling at his sides, and keep from getting beheaded? The secret is in the dangling. After he tags you with his cross-over right, Froch’s entire body goes limp. Anything but a direct hit, like Kessler’s in round 8, gets harmlessly absorbed by Froch’s body. It’s like punching a sponge.
Still, a little more overall tension from Froch after round 5 likely would have won him the fight. He knocked Kessler backwards with a right hand in the final minute of the fifth. Then he held his glove up and showed it to the Danes, without deigning to press his advantage. He should know better next time.
What happened Saturday made a great tournament better. Kessler-Froch was the best fight of the “Super Six” thus far. And round 12 was the best three minutes in prizefighting’s first third of 2010. What’s next? Kessler may get stretched by Allan Green, the quirky Oklahoma slugger, or he might not. And Froch against Arthur Abraham? No earthly idea.
But know this: “Super Six” will continue to surprise and satisfy.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter.com/bartbarry
Source: 15rounds.com
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