Quote Originally Posted by amat
I've seen the Thysee, Siaca, Mundine, Beyer fights and one other that's sliped my memory. And a sparring session with Sam Soliman. And Siaca never really sustained a really good round, just had small spurts of sucess when he came forward. But whenever he moved straight forward Kessler just backpedaled and got hit. Happened a few times in the early rounds before Kess took over. It's just a small thing in a dominating performance but it's things like that you have to look for when facing competition that's less then stellar.

And I sounded so harsh, but it's more of a testement to Calzaghe then anything. Kess is part of the future of the 168's, but he isn't beating a sound and focused Calzaghe.

Fair enough.
We don't agree but you make valid points.

As for Kessler's move-straight-back-when-pressured routine, it's as far as i can tell one of the most often mentioned SERIOUS critisisms about his style.
Way i see it Kessler's defence is all about control of distance. The straight back move is simply to regain control of distance. So far i haven't seen anyone able to land on him if they tried to follow. He takes theose 1 or 2 steps backwards and is then ready to counter. Typically the opponent will try that a few times during the first rounds and then more or less give up on it because it leads to too much punishment when Kessler counters. Think the same happened in the Siaca fight.
Now whether Kessler can be succesful with this style against better opposition remains to be seen (or if not, if he's able to change his style).
To me he's looked convincing enough that i believe he can pull it off, even against Calzaghe. I can respect if ppl view it differently. It's not like i feel a Calzaghe-Kessler fight would have a fore-gone conclussion - but that goes both ways.