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Last night in front of 20,000 people at Parken Stadium in Copenhagen, Denmark, WBC/WBA Super Middleweight Champion Mikkel Kessler won every round enroute to posting a wide points decision victory over hard nosed Librado Andrade.
From the start it was clear that Andrade didn’t come to Copenhagen to deliver anything less than full effort but sheer will and toughness couldn’t overcome the sizable edge in skill enjoyed by Kessler.
Despite only being an inch taller than the champion at 6 foot 2, the California based Mexican was substantially bigger than the Dane and Andrade’s size and reach advantage gave Kessler some difficulty throughout the night but it was the challenger’s chin that kept him in the fight.
Kessler relied on quick footwork and superb balance to prevent Andrade from mounting any sustained or coordinated offensive effort while patiently picking moments to rip the visitor with well placed combinations that lashed Andrade’s head at times as if it was on a swivel.
Early on Andrade set a furious pace, pressuring Kessler relentlessly with body blows and long armed looping head shots but the Dane would move just enough to make the challenger’s efforts largely ineffective while belting Andrade with counter combinations of machine-like precision.
By the middle rounds, Andrade tired from the torrid effort and the pace slowed to the more measured tempo favored by the champion. Kessler then mounted the kinds of searing assaults on Andrade that had sent such accomplished fighters as Eric Lucas, Markus Beyer and Manny Siaca to an early finish.
As impressive as Kessler’s riveting combinations were, Andrade’s ability to take a punch was simply breathtaking as time after time the challenger soaked up the punishment and still came forward, catching Kessler with the occasional hard shot.
By the later rounds, Andrade finally took the advice of his trainer, ex-world champion Wayne McCullough, and resumed his hard pressure style of the early stages of the fight but this time it was more effective and Kessler was on the defensive under a flow of jabs and body shots from the challenger.
Andrade’s success was short lived however as Kessler went to work on the inside and reeled off savage four and five punch stanzas that caused the Mexican to scale back his efforts.
Rejecting his corner’s advice to play it safe during the final round, Kessler went toe to toe with Andrade and tried to knock out the steel chinned challenger but to no avail. As the final bell rang, the Dane was declared the winner on all three scorecards.
Mikkel Kessler stays undefeated at 39-0 (29) and retains the WBC and WBA titles while Librado Andrade suffers his first loss and drops to 24-1 (18).
Afterward, Kessler admitted to being somewhat discouraged that his best efforts seemed to have little effect on his opponent but made a point in challenging WBO Champion Joe Calzaghe to meet in the ring later this year.
