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Friday night Librado Andrade will challenge for Lucian Bute's title at 168 pounds. Here is the oldest recap we have of an Andrade match. It is Andrade's only loss to Mikkel Kessler:

Recap HBO Boxing After Dark

Copenhagen, Denmark

March 24, 2007 (in the US where this was broadcast live, it was actually March 25 in Denmark where the fight took place)

WBA and WBC Super Middleweight Championship Match (168 pounds):

Mikkel Kessler (38-0, 29 KO's, 168 pounds)(c) vs. Librado Andrade (24-0, 18 KO's, 168 pounds):

Kessler is from Denmark and trying to become marketable on the world stage. Andrade was born in Mexico and now fights out of Las Vegas, Nevada. In the pre-match it appears that the crowd in Copenhagen of what is expected to be near 20,000 people like listening to Justin Timberlake's SexyBack as their way to get revved up for a big match. I prefer the Germans' choice of Red Hot Chili Peppers, but to each their own. Mikkel Kessler is trying to position himself for a fight with Joe Calzaghe. Kessler mostly stays at fights at home in Denmark where he is very popular. Calzaghe is the man at 168 pounds and fights on April 7 on HBO. Theoretically a dominant showing here by Kessler that will be replayed a lot across all the HBO networks and any type of win by Calzaghe would perfectly position both men for that super fight with roughly the same amount of rest and a built in promoter/hype machine. Kessler could even show up at Calzaghe fight in a few weeks, but that would look scripted so it be safe to bet on that happening. Kessler is giving up an inch in height and two in reach to Andrade. Andrade apparently was born in Mexico and Max Kellerman reports he moved to the United States and was at one point the hamburger cook at Jack in the Box. Andrade was on track to become manager at Jack in the Box someday, but decided instead he would focus full time on boxing. Now Andrade finds himself far away from that Jack in the Box in Los Angeles, fighting for two world titles in Denmark. As far as HBO is concerned from a promotion perspective it gives them a good story of an American fighter that can be used as the vehicle to transition the interest into a foreign fighter. The HBO hype machine needs to create interest for a fight between two people not born or living on the continent and make it a big money fight. The commentators are predicting this to be the toughest fight of Kessler's career as Andrade will pressure Kessler during the fight and it will be interesting to see how Kessler reacts to a bigger fighter bringing the fight to him.

Here are the rule of this contest. No 3 knockdown rule. Only the referee can stop the fight. In case of a cut due to an accidental clash of heads the fight will go to the scorecards at the start of round 5, which I think as the same thing is after round 4 (if the fight is stopped under these conditions in between rounds 4 and 5 we'll find out together) which is what it usually is. A fighter cannot be saved by the bell in any round. Finally and probably most importantly this is a 12 round contest.

Andrade was apparently a terrible amateur and has become a very solid professional fighter. Andrade's last fight was nixed as he stepped aside to allow Kessler to have the match instead. Which ended up working out great for Andrade, as Andrade was getting $80,000 for the fight and Kessler gave Andrade $250,000 to not fight. Andrade's purse for this fight today though will be $500,000. Had Andrade made manager at Jack in the Box he would he made $40,000 a year. That's something to keep in mind when choosing careers. Mikkel Kessler says he is equally adept with both hands, being ambidextrous and has one of the best jabs in the sport of boxing. The referee tonight has been appointed to work the fight despite currently serving a six month suspension from refereeing in the United States. Texas handed down that suspension and a $500 fine because this referee was giving advice to one of the boxers during the match. He actually stopped action called for a timeout, pulled the fighter to the side and gave him advice. Yet, this referee was asked by a sanctioning body of boxing while on suspension in America to fly to Denmark to referee a televised championship match. This Boxing After Dark show is not necessarily showing all parts of boxing in the best light, specifically the people up top at the sanctioning bodies and athletic commissions. This is write up weekend number 4 for me and this at least the third time the commentators have buried a sanctioning body or athletic commission (all HBO shows that I recall, which is just a coincidence Teddy Atlas for ESPN is no fan on many of the same issues and Max Kellerman who is making a lot of the points here used to work on Friday Night Fights before leaving for Fox Sports Net and his ill fated own television sports show).

Andrade is just as advertised pressing the action at the start of the fight, but Kessler is able to avoid almost all of it and score with a few of his own punches. If Andrade doesn't gas this fight is going to be fought at a good clip. Kessler is looking to move and counter and so far Kessler has the move part right. Now,Kessler just needs to really capitalize on that second part. Andrade's corner wants their fighter to work the body of Kessler more. Andrade responds to his corners instructions by throwing his first few punches to the body of Kessler. In round 2 Andrade looks to be the more easy going of the fighters and Kessler appears to be a little nervous, as if this was something he didn't bargain for when making the fight. Kessler has likely taken the first two rounds of the match with landing better good hard punches, but he's sure not looking comfortable doing it. Kessler apparently is a fighter who likes to come forward and that is not going to happen in this fight. Kessler is bleeding out of nose as round 2 ends. Andrade is likely not good enough to win this match, but he is definitely showing some holes in Kessler's game for Kessler to either fix or Calzaghe or to exploit. Kessler is landing some big punches countering when he slips the punches of Andrade, yet Andrade is still coming forward. Andrade forward pace has slowed and Kessler is starting to set his feet up to punch more which is a bad thing for Andrade. Kessler is in his groove as round 3 comes to a close completely confident and in control. This is a great fight by the way, this whole show is definitely worth watching. The score after three rounds I imagine is pretty clear 30-27 Kessler as HBO has it scored and so do I. With this fight being in Kessler's native Denmark I'd say there is a pretty fair chance the judges all have it the same way too. The judges by the way are two Americans and the other hails from Great Britain.

In round 4 the punches from Andrade no longer seem to have an effect on Kessler who is now at times walking Andrade down. I have no idea how Andrade stayed vertical throughout round 4. Kessler hit Andrade with 4 huge punches and I mean huge. In real time, I could see the sweat flying very dramatically off Andrade's head each time Kessler hit Andrade with each of these four shots. This was video game slow motion close up picture type connects, except some of these were distance shots with the hard cam. The arena this event is being held in is apparently a soccer stadium modified for boxing for one night. Andrade left hand is dropping really low and that is Andrade's lead hand so that could spell trouble soon. Kessler's power shots are finding Andrade 47% of the time and rising as the fight progresses. The thoughts of stopping it have to start running through the mind of Andrade's corner if they are responsible. Their fighter is taking a lot of punishment and its not going to get better. The broadcasters are pointing out there may not be a particular moment that the fight needs to be stopped, but its getting near where its not a moment more simply of a general sense its time. This responsibility also lies on the third man in the ring, the referee. As the rules of this contest state a doctor cannot stop this fight, only the referee. The referee is the first line of defense against fighter injury let's hope he uses good judgment here. The score after 5 rounds is likely 50-45 Kessler.

Kellerman is pointing out as round 6 begins, that as far as wise stoppages go there may be some impediments to that happening. First, Andrade's trainer as a fighter fought in a lot of very difficult fights and would likely be hesitant to make the call to stop the fight based on his fighting experience. Second, Andrade does have a punchers chance. It's rapidly fading, but he could potentially score a flash knockout making those responsible less likely to stop the fight early. Finally, this referee is just plain terrible and the last transgression was only part of what has been a series of terrible decisions he has made in the ring. Kessler has leads in connected punches in rounds 3 through 5, 94-19 and Kessler barely even felt those 19 and those 94 may stay with Andrade for life if this keeps up. Emanuel Steward says he would not stop the fight if Andrade was one of his fighters, because Andrade can still go a little more. The bothersome question is how much more? Andrade was out landed in round 6, 27-5 by Kessler and had the bell come ten seconds later it is likely this beating would have been mercifully ended as I'm nearly certain Andrade enduring a barrage of punches to finishes the round would have gone down. That would have ended this affair as not even this referee could possibly let this fight continue after even a finger of Andrade's touches the canvas. I don't know how Andrade is still standing and I really wish he weren't.

In round 7 Andrade instead of pressing in and forcing the action, like the first two rounds, now he is falling in off balance desperately trying to do anything. This only creates huge counter opportunities for Kessler and shows me more of why I don't think this needs to go much longer. Andrade took less punishment in round 7 and clearly earned himself the right to come out for one more. Andrade really took some good punches right to whichever area of the head and face Kessler targeted for his gloves to land. The scorecard for this round is again 10-9 Kessler and I expect that to be the same until the end of the match. Once again a minute into round 8 Andrade eats a huge left-right combination from Kessler, but once again remains standing. Thirty seconds later Andrade eats another two punch combo that snaps his head back and gets some noise form the crowd, but continues standing there for the next inevitable combination from Kessler. Round 8 ends Andrade survives, you know the score. Through 8 rounds Kessler has landed222 punches so far, Andrade has landed 63. Kessler is just 28 and this clearly counts as a dominant performance showing he is ready for the big time and marketable. He got what he needed out of this fight, let's just hope the story of this fight is Kessler's announcement that he is ready for the big time and not something much worse.

It is being pointed out that by standing there Andrade is probably earning himself more big payday's down the line as a guy who can test other young fighters and has a great chin. Andrade's corner has yet to broach the subject of potentially stopping the fight with Andrade and ask their fighter to give them more. That shows they have no intention of stopping this fight anytime soon and I'm not sure that is the wise course of action much longer. Kessler coasted the first 2:30 of round 9 and nearly lost it, but a solid combo in the last 20 seconds saved it for him. Kessler is still in a fight and trying to show he is a big time fighter, so he needs to finish strong not coast it out. Andrade had a solid round 10 apparently justifying his corners faith in him. Kessler still won the round and delivered more punishment to Andrade, but Andrade has gotten far more aggressive offensively in the last two rounds. Midway through round 11 the crowd begins to chant "Miggel" which they have done at various times throughout the night and is how you pronounce Mikkel, Kessler's first name in Danish. Andrade is completely exhausted and starting to not move around so well. Amazingly though, there is not a mark on Andrade and Andrade continues to walk at points.

This is the final round and the two combatants hug in the middle of the ring prior to the start of the round, which I don't think I have ever seen before in a boxing match. HBO scored round 11 in favor of Andrade which is amazing that Andrade is winning rounds this late into the fight let alone still fighting. There was a stoppage early in round 12 as Andrade lost his mouthpiece and when I rewound the footage it appeared Andrade spit it out as it definitely was not knocked out by a punch, but rather fell out during a clinch. Kessler's corner told him prior to the round to stay away, use his jab, and coast out the final round playing it safe getting an easy win on the judges scorecards. Kessler on the other hand decided to fight round 12 looking for a decisive finish, which the crowd made happier. The two fighters embrace as the fight ends and the HBO commentators speak of the heart of Andrade and that if he keeps this up, Andrade may end up being mentioned among the legendary chins in all of boxing history. The commentators main critique of Kessler is that he needs to throw more uppercuts, but he looked unbeatable tonight. The final scorecard from HBO is, 119-109 Kessler. The commentators put a verbal asterisk on their scorecard, noting that score could be even more lopsided with round 11 possibly being scored for Kessler. Several of the other rounds could bescored 10-8 in favor of Kessler even without a knockdown recorded based on the volume and disparity of punches completely reasonably.

The fighters hug once more and now the score cards are to be read, with the decision not in doubt: 120-108, 120-108, 120-108, all for the winner and still WBA and WBC Super Middleweight Champion Mikkel Kessler. Final punch stats are simply disturbing to say the least Kessler landed 348 punches, a large number being power connects, to 95 punches being landed by Andrade. Kessler landed 94 punches in just rounds 3 in the early part of the fight. Kessler landed, for those of you who do not want to do the math (HBO did it for me), 253 more than Andrade. Andrade did push the action throwing 923 punches to 856 for Kessler. This led to a connect percentage of 41% for Kessler and 10% of Andrade's punches found the mark according compubox. The power punch stats are even uglier Kessler landed 160 power connects to Andrade's 55 and there was a lot more power on all 160 of Kessler's 160 power connects then the average power punch Andrade was throwing. Kessler connection percentage gets even higher when it comes to power punches as he landed at 49%, whereas Andrade held steady landing at 10%. Andrade in his post fight interview sounds tired, but mostly okay and there doesn't appear to be much signs that he just got beat on for 36 minutes. Kessler at least got a bloody nose in this fight and Andrade did not even suffer that, visually appearing perfectly fine after the match. I just hope they do a full neurological work up on Andrade before they let him out of Denmark. High altitude and potential brain injuries go well together, but amazingly he sounded mostly fine right now. Kessler has now finished with his interview responsibilities in Danish and is now giving his English post fight interview. Kessler said he went for the knockout in round 12, because he had lots of energy left at the end of the fight so he wanted to make a good impression for HBO and the American audience and go for the highlight finish. Kessler then in a promo very reminiscent of, Arnold Schwarzenegger (it may just be the sweet accent though), called out Joe Calzaghe. "I dare you Calzaghe. That's what I told you months before and I hope he is going to fight me soon. If he dares, of course." Picture California's Governor saying, that circa Kindergarten Cop and that was exactly what this was. Kessler this promo smiling and it was awesome. Kellerman is calling for Calzaghe to face Kessler who is younger and clearly just proved himself. Its time for them to fight soon.

Sincerely,

Jereme Warneck

Hidden Valley Lake, CA

I can be reached for comments and feedback at zurroadie@aol.com or as JeremeW on XBOX Live. I read everything.