by David P. Greisman

Mikkel Kessler, the veteran, he of 43 pro fights, he of nine world title bouts, looked the part of a challenger out of his league.

Andre Ward, the prospect, he of 20 pro fights, he of zero world title bouts, looked like a veteran who knew exactly what to do and how to do it.

“I’m looking for habits. I’m not looking for mistakes, because everyone can make mistakes in a fight. It’s the habits that he does in every fight. He does the exact same thing in every fight.”

That was Freddie Roach, trainer of Manny Pacquiao, speaking of what he looked for while studying Miguel Cotto’s past fights.

Words of wisdom for one fight can apply to another.

“I think my strengths are [my] speed and my experience,” Kessler, the Viking Warrior from Denmark, said five days before the fight. “I have double the fights he has, and I have had a lot of big fights.

“I’m not the kind of guy who watches tape,” Kessler said. “I watched some of his fights a couple times and we talked about it. I’m well prepared.”

“People are often surprised when they fight me,” Ward, the Oakland, Calif, fighter known as S.O.G., or Son of God, said five days before the fight. “You see one thing and get in the ring and see something different. [Edison] Miranda told me in the locker room after the fight that he thought I would be a lot easier than I was, and I’ve heard that a lot during my career, even going back to the amateurs.

“We’ve had a game plan for the past nine weeks,” Ward said.

“We go back and look at every fight,” he said. “We saw mistakes in the Miranda fight, and we’ve corrected those.”

Mikkel Kessler, for all his speed and experience, couldn’t hit Andre Ward.

Ward moved. He changed levels. He switched stances. Sometimes he stepped out of range before returning with a few shots of his own. Sometimes he stepped inside, clinching, holding, with few or no punches exchanged.

Kessler had long relied on – and long succeeded with – a classic European style, largely jabs and crosses, with the occasional hook or uppercut thrown in. It had won him world titles at super middleweight, earned him a shot in 2007 at 168-pound champion Joe Calzaghe, and kept him atop the division even after Calzaghe defeated him.

Mikkel Kessler couldn’t hit Andre Ward.

Kessler took the role of pressure fighter, but he was a hunter with a moving target, never pulling the trigger until Ward was within his sights.

Jabs, from a distance, fell short. The ones were often followed by twos, right crosses that found nothing but air.

Kessler, more than 11 years into his pro career, entering his 44th fight, had a formula for success. In Ward, he saw a skilled but untested challenger, an Olympic gold medalist, yes, but a prospect suddenly fighting for a world title.

Kessler might have looked at Ward’s seventh pro fight, when he was knocked down by Darnell Boone. Kessler might have looked at Ward’s 19th pro fight, when Edison Miranda took the role of pressure fighter, occasionally catching Ward with right hands.

Kessler might have looked at himself and thought his power, unlike that of Boone, could keep Ward down. He might have looked at himself and thought he was a more skilled pressure fighter than Miranda, with more speed for delivering those right hands.

Ward, just five years into his pro career, entering his 21st fight, had not lost in more than a decade, not since he was an amateur. Some prospects build up their records and never change until they are forced to do so. Ward saw himself as a work in progress.

He took care of those mistakes that Kessler had been counting on – mistakes like that which allowed Boone to put him on the canvas, mistakes like those that allowed a slower pressure fighter like Miranda to land.

And Ward prepared for the fighter Kessler had become and would remain, the habits that had led to Kessler’s success – and would lead to his downfall.

It wasn’t pretty, but it was effective.

Ward, controlling distance, using his advantages in foot and hand speed, left few opportunities for Kessler to catch him with his right hand.

Kessler never pulled out the uppercut that had landed early against Calzaghe, and he had sporadic success with his left hook.

Ward was well aware of Kessler’s bread and butter – the jabs followed by right crosses – and so he took it off the table.

Through 10-and-a-half rounds, Kessler threw 431 punches, landing 125, a 29 percent connect rate. In the 10 full rounds, half saw Kessler land just 10 punches. The rest of the rounds weren’t much better: 13, 18, 14, 14 and 12.

Of every five landed punches, three were jabs – Kessler landed 78 of those on the night. His power punching was paltry, 47 of 151, a 31 percent connect rate. He never landed more than six in a round, and that only happened twice. The rest of the full rounds were even worse: 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 4, 5 and 3.

He averaged less than 41 total punches thrown for every full round. That was less than the 49 punches per round Calzaghe had kept him to, and far less than the 74 per round he had thrown in his victories over Librado Andrade, Marcus Beyer and Eric Lucas, according to CompuBox statistics on HBO.com.

Ward landed 100 more punches than Kessler, 225 total on the night. The three full rounds in which he landed the least were the first two rounds and the fifth – 16, 14 and 16 was still on par or better than Kessler’s best. The rest was even better: 18, 21, 25, 31, 27, 26 and 24. He averaged more than 63 punches thrown for every full round.

Of every five punches landed, two were jabs – Ward landed 93 of those on the night. He had far more success with his power punches, too, landing 132. Ward hit double digits with his power punches in seven of the 10 full rounds.

As contestants in the Super Six super middleweight tournament, the contracts stipulated a 20-foot-by-20-foot ring. Kessler and Ward agreed to 18-by-18. It should’ve meant an advantage for the pressure fighter. It ended up not meaning a thing.

Ward, for someone with comparatively less professional experience, had a full arsenal of punches, techniques and tricks. And whether it was just two fighters coming forward or Ward being a cunning fighter, he not only did damage to Kessler with his fists, but with his head, too.

A cut opened under Kessler’s right eye in the fourth. He had a cut over his left eye a few rounds later.

“I can’t see,” Kessler told his corner after the seventh round.

Earlier that round, he had resorted to a wild left hook that missed high by more than a foot, a punch thrown either out of desperation or frustration.

“I can’t see,” he said again after the eighth. Through the broadcast’s translator, a debate could be heard among his corner men over whether to stop the fight.

The head butts didn’t cause Kessler to lose. Rather, they exacerbated Kessler’s situation, in this case adding injury to insult.

Another clash of heads opened a cut over Kessler’s right eye. When that cut worsened in the 11th, referee Jack Reiss called over a ringside physician, who recommended the fight be stopped. Reiss agreed, and the bout was sent to the scorecards. All three judges saw the bout for Ward, 98-92 (twice) and 97-93.

Kessler also complained after the fight of being hit in clinches. But holding in the fight was rare. Reiss was quick to break up the fighters when they got close, even when their hands were free. Some punching was done in clinches, but nothing that led to Kessler’s defeat. Kessler, for his inability to land from a distance, did no work on the inside.

Kessler was stubborn to a fault. He came in confident that what had delivered him to victory 41 times before would bring him the win again. Instead, he learned that while good fighters get by on skills, speed and toughness, those that strive to be great continue to learn, change and adjust.

Ward was studious, to his credit. He came in undefeated and left the same way, though as a world titlist instead of a prospect. By taking out one of the tournament’s favorites, and by doing so with ease and focus, he showed himself to be one tough S.O.G.

The 10 Count

1.  A quick rundown on where the Super Six super-middleweight tournament stands right now:

Arthur Abraham has three points – two for his win over Jermain Taylor last month, plus a bonus point for beating Taylor by knockout. That puts him in first place, ahead of Carl Froch and Andre Ward, both of whom have two points for winning their bouts by decision.

The three losing fighters – Taylor, Andre Dirrell and Mikkel Kessler – have zero points.

All six fighters will have a total of three round-robin fights. Stage two of the round-robin part of the tournament will include Dirrell-Abraham, Kessler-Froch and Taylor-Ward. Stage three will include Dirrell-Ward, Froch-Abraham and Kessler-Taylor. The top four fighters move on to the semifinals, which will be single-elimination.

After Taylor got knocked out by Abraham – his fourth loss in five fights, three by kayo – many questioned whether he’d continue in the tournament. It sounds like he will: “Yes, I’m still a part of it and still have been training very hard for future fights,” Taylor wrote on his Twitter account last week.”

(Cheap plugs: Follow me at twitter.com/fightingwords2 and, if you’re not already, follow BoxingScene at twitter.com/boxingscene)

The question, now, is how long Kessler will be sidelined until those cuts he suffered against Ward heal fully.

No dates have been announced yet for the second stage of fights, so there’s no indication how long Kessler will have to recover.

2.  The emphasis on American fighters facing European fighters in the first round of the Super Six tournament made for a good storyline, especially after the first two fights ended with Europeans triumphant, leaving Ward the one man who could prevent a clean sweep.

That storyline should end as of now, and not just because each of the next two rounds will see one American fighter against another.

This tournament is about crowning the new king of the 168-pound division, about creating fans for fighters, no matter their nationality. It is about giving two prospects (Ward, Dirrell) the chance to prove their mettle, about giving one former champion a chance for redemption (Taylor), and about giving three Europeans the chance to expand their fan base (Abraham, Froch, Kessler).

The setting for Ward-Kessler seemed unnecessarily nationalistic, though I don’t think it reached the point of jingoism. The ring ropes were red, white and blue. Ward’s trunks were red, white and blue, as was his robe. He waved a United States flag on the way to the ring.

Hey, whatever it takes to motivate Ward. It sure worked.

But the rest of the tournament shouldn’t be an “Us vs. Them” thing.

3.  Not that it would’ve made any difference, but the judges, by rule, should’ve scored the 11th round, all one minute and 42 seconds of it, before rendering their technical decision.

4.  Can we please get some CompuBox statistics for Carl Froch’s win over Andre Dirrell?

5.  Here’s why boxing promoters will never follow the lead of the U F C and pack their pay-per-views, top to bottom, with quality fights:

Last year’s Oscar De La Hoya-Manny Pacquiao pay-per-view, with an undercard featuring less than five rounds of action and a total of 11 minutes and 41 seconds of fighting, had a buy rate of 1.25 million in the United States and pulled in $70 million in revenue.

And…

This year’s Miguel Cotto-Manny Pacquiao pay-per-view, with an underwhelming undercard featuring Alfonso Gomez against Jesus Soto-Karass, Daniel Santos against Yuri Foreman, and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. against Troy Rowland, had a buy rate of 1.25 million in the United States and pulled in $70 million in revenue.

Every silver lining has a cloud.

6.  A fourth fight between Israel Vazquez and Rafael Marquez is in the works for February 27 but is not quite a go. The contracts are not yet signed, and Showtime has not given its final approval to finalize the fight, promoter Gary Shaw told BoxingScene's own Rick Reeno.

Sigh.

I know it could be yet another great fight.

I looked forward to all three times Vazquez and Marquez went to war.

I know they will have had 728 days to recover since they last fought each other, and each has had one comeback bout to shake some rust off.

And yet I can’t, in good conscience, look forward to Vazquez-Marquez 4.

7.  Boxers Behaving Badly, part one: An undefeated 130-pound prospect from Italy was arrested Nov. 11 and charged with possessing drugs with intent to distribute, according to various reports there.

Devis Boschiero, 28, allegedly had 15 grams of cocaine, and police also seized 14,200 euros, or about $21,095.

Boschiero has been fighting pro for about five years. He is 25-0 with 11 knockouts, his last victory coming in July over some dude named Zsolt Nagy.

8.  Boxers Behaving Badly, part two: Grant Brown, an Australian boxer who retired undefeated after a brief career, was arrested last week after scoring a knockout over a 70-year-old man, according to 9News.

Brown, 31, was riding on a ferry. People described him as “acting aggressively on the ferry, kicking walls and bins before the attack,” the report said. He then allegedly threatened one man before turning his attention to the eventual victim. After getting hit, the victim fell and hit the back of his head against the deck.

Brown fought sporadically from 2001 to 2006, winning all eight of his bouts, three by way of knockout, according to BoxRec. His last appearance was a fourth-round stoppage of some dude named Mohammed Jamal Khan.

9.  Boxers Behaving Badly update: A retired bantamweight from South Africa is on trial in his country, accused of killing his wife, according to the Daily Dispatch.

Luthando Maqolo, 33, allegedly shot his wife multiple times Jan. 3 before leaving her on the side of a road. Maqolo says he intended to kill himself, too, though police say that wasn’t the case, that Maqolo killed his wife because she was looking to leave him.

Maqolo and his late wife have a 3-year-old son. The article seems to indicate that their son was in their car at the time.

The judge is scheduled to rule on the case Dec. 14.

Maqolo was 14-9-2 as a pro fighter (according to BoxRec), challenging for the South African title in May 2005 in what would be his last bout, a seventh-round stoppage loss to some dude named Simpiwe Vetyeka.

10.  Apparently Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, peeved about Dan Rafael panning the pay-per-view undercard to Cotto-Pacquiao, gave the ESPN.com scribe the middle finger after the televised undercard’s second bout, Yuri Foreman’s decision win over Daniel Santos.

My only question: How soon until the WBC hands Arum a six-month suspension from promoting a title bout?

David P. Greisman is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. His weekly column, “Fighting Words,” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. He may be reached for questions and comments at fightingwords1@gmail.com