If you know the story of Mikkel Kessler's boxing career, you know that his trainer Richard Olsen has been there from the absolute beginning, telling him he'd never make it, and then guiding him through a fantastic career that has seen him rank among the best in the world at 168 pounds for years.
Not anymore, though. Per Ake Persson reports that Kessler has fired Olsen after Kessler's horrific performance against Andre Ward in November.
After the fight, we speculated that Kessler might need a corner change, but were just speculating. It looks like Kessler had the same thought. Olsen has been blamed by many for Kessler's awful performance, but I don't think you can singularly blame the trainer for fighting that bad. Even if he was giving poor advice or their training wasn't so great, it's up to the fighter more than anyone else. Same with Juan Diaz and Ronnie Shields; Shields gave Diaz terrible instruction in his last fight, but how did Juan not know that it was a bad idea to take a round off in a fight he was losing? At some point, don't you just ignore it and do what you know is right?
But that's just jibber-jabber. Now serving as lead trainer for Kessler will be Jimmy Montoya, who has certainly been around the block and then some in his time in boxing.
Kessler returns on April 17 against Carl Froch.