A Dream Out of Reach: Mikkel Kessler & The Super Six

Some sort of meditation or other.

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The Super Six suffered another body shot when Mikkel Kessler was forced to withdraw from the tournament today because of an eye injury. This is a serious blow to the World Boxing Classic, which has taken its share of clouts since its commencement and is looking slightly punchy at this point from the beating.

First, Jermain Taylor was bought out of the tournament after being knocked kicking by Arthur Abraham. Then Andre Dirrell, who seems to drag misfortune into the ring with him every time he fights, lost a close hometown decision to Carl Froch in Nottingham. He followed that disappointment up by winning his fight against Arthur Abraham, a bout he dominated from the opening bell, via DQ and while stretched out on his back, delirious, in a near-empty Joe Louis Arena.

But things have gotten even stranger over the last few weeks. The stink Carl Froch made after losing a decision to Kessler in Herning last April held the Super Six hostage for a fortnight or more and forced his fight with Arthur Abraham to be shifted from a potential box-office smash in Berlin to the eyebrow raising destination of Fontvieille, Monaco. As it is, Froch-Abraham is still not official because, incredibly, it awaits the approval of Prince Albert II. In fact, tickets have yet to go on sale in Monaco, which has a population of roughly 35,000. They might as well stage this fight in Glubbdubdrib.

Finally, Andre Ward and Andre Dirrell seem incapable of overcoming their filial affection for each other, and their scheduled bout–still without a site–looks closer to being postponed or cancelled with each passing second. Friendship is a poor excuse—if this is actually the case—to shirk contractual obligations. Hell, even Chang and Eng swapped punches once in a while. (It should also be noted that the Ward-Green bout was close to being postponed last June due to poor ticket sales.) And now Kessler is out with eye troubles. There is no telling just how much this shakes up the tournament or what the next step for the Super Six might be.

Allan Green, whose lethargic performance—in perplexing combination with a mouth perpetually on overdrive—against Andre Ward made him a laughingstock, may now lose a chance to atone for his disastrous effort last month. If Green came into his bout in Denmark revved up and prepared to make amends with his fists, then his fight with Kessler might have been a doozy.

For Kessler, at 31, a fine career may now be in jeopardy. Although his doctor has stated that Kessler should be able to resume boxing with time, nothing seems certain at this point. What is certain, however, is that Kessler has always given his best in the ring, and that he has always been–between and beyond the ropes–a true sport. There are few fighters in boxing who still appear to labor under the burden of dreams, and Kessler is one of them. “This is the most disappointing moment of my boxing career,” he said. Many will share his disappointment.

Symbolically, perhaps, the World Boxing Classic can be read as attempt to impose some sort of order on a sport that thrives on pandemonium. That remains a dream well out of reach. In the end, the Super Six may have been “revolutionary” (at least to boxing fans, fewer than 450,000 of whom bothered to tune into Ward-Green), but you cannot take boxing out of boxing any more than you can remove faith from a study of Tertullian. Boxing remains untameable. Points, standings, brackets—none of this is made of strong enough stuff to survive boxing, where chaos, chance, contingency are undisputed champions. What Showtime has accomplished, remarkable in itself, is putting together–at least on paper–a series of compelling fights between topnotch athletes. Maybe everything else is irrelevant.

Only the ring lights matter, when they glare down on two evenly matched competitors ready to risk and, ultimately, reveal themselves—their strengths, weaknesses, character—before the heavy-lidded eyes of a finicky, finicky world. “We are alone, with no excuses.”

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