While it wasn’t his trainer’s fault, Kessler didn’t become that bad overnight(good as Ward was) and a new trainer could easily freshen things up a bit with a different perspective.

Maybe Kessler’s looking for a scape-goat and trying to resurrect an old career. I never put him as favourite for the tournament, I thought he was at the wrong end of time and was not that good anyway. Very good but strictly limited in approach. If his trainer was sufficient up to then, he’s sufficient now. I suspect that maybe Kessler doesn’t want to face reality. He’s finished at the higher level. And fighters can and do go bad overnight – actually not overnight but in the ring against a young fighter with real hunger and abilities. A new trainer now will have his work cut out trying to get Kessler to rapidly change. He’s not got a lot of time and has to teach an old dog new tricks.

Randy, I thought exactly the same watching Junior Witter vs Devon Alexander, the younger, hungrier man made Witter look dreadful, and from that, I think Witter’s done at top level.

quite lucky to get a world belt and his loss was waiting to happen. There’s also an alarming lack of success at the really top-level for Ingle or ex-Ingle fighters. Think Johnny Nelson, Herol Graham, Witter, even Hamed. All of them have sublime talents and great defensive skills up to a point but it flatters to deceive as to their overall abilities. Ingle taught his fighters to avoid punches, not necessarily how to mount an effective offense against the best opponents. Herol Graham was often berated for being so negative and so, against Jackson, decided to go for broke and…got KOd. Hamed got rid of Ingle after wiining the European title with a shut-out against a vastly more experienced Belcastro by taking no shots and throwing plenty and promptly depended on his mighty punch power for ever more but would the Ingle approach have worked anyway at World level? Johnny Nelson? Jeesus, what an under-achiever. Apart from Hamed, most Ingle fighters seem to be a tad gun-shy, something one could never accuse Hamed of admittedly.

I don’t remember the corner advice being bad in that fight. The problem was that Kessler never learned how to handle infighting. The best corner advice in the world isn’t going to help you if you haven’t been taught the necessary skills in the gym. I would think the trainer had to have been at least partly responsible for that deficiency, although it might be too late to do anything about it. Can’t teach an old dog…

Spent about 5 minutes saying that he never saw Kessler change strategies during the Calzaghe fight. Seemed like he was almost saying that “Kessler has never learned a second style from his trainer.” I think Kessler can greatly improve from a change in trainer especially since he really loves training.