Nov. 6th: Super Six Crossroads

Nov. 6th: Super Six Crossroads
Mark E. Ortega
UndisputedFightMag.com
November 4, 2010


This Saturday, on a weekend chock full of fun and important bouts, there is one fight that may get overlooked but could prove to be the most intriguing.

On Showtime, on the undercard of the potential Fight of the Year candidate between Juan Manuel Lopez and Rafael Marquez, the Super Six super middleweight tournament resumes when Allan Green [29-2, 20 KOs] and Glen Johnson [50-14-2, 34 KOs] lock horns.

For those who have been following the tournament, you know it has been a wild and rocky ride and that neither of these men was of the original six that Showtime put together almost a year and a half ago. Still, it provides the division with a meaningful bout between two fighters that are at a crossroads in their career.



In one corner, you have Allan Green. Cocky, brash, but always straight-forward, the 31-year old out of Tulsa, Oklahoma has been hyped by many yet features no signature win despite being given a few opportunities to shine. Green has ridden the wave of expectations for far too long, dating back to when he ruthlessly blasted a then-undefeated Jaidon Codrington in eighteen seconds in November of 2005 and then followed it up by giving a shoutout to the local used car dealership that had sponsored him.

This young writer still remembers seeing this bout live and wondering if he had witnessed Codrington’s life come to an end as he slumped over the third rope without moving for many minutes. Thankfully the damage was not as severe as I had presumed and the Allan Green machine picked up steam as four of his next five bouts were featured on ESPN telecasts before he met Edison Miranda on HBO in his first true test as a pro.

That March 2007 bout took place at close to the middleweight limit, a place that had not been familiar for Green in many bouts. A lackluster performance Green delivered, and then later cited the illness that led to a future removal of his colon as one of the causes of his defeat. Still, Green was enough of a polarizing figure that he would earn a slot in the historical Showtime Super Six tournament once Jermain Taylor bowed out following his 12th-round knockout loss to Arthur Abraham in Stage One. Green’s first fight would come against the newly-emerged 2004 Olympic Gold Medalist Andre Ward in the WBA champion’s hometown of Oakland, California.

Green promised to make the most out of the opportunity that many observers felt came undeserved. Yet what he delivered in the ring was far short of what many expected as he fought to hold on against Ward en route to a shutout defeat over twelve rounds.

John David Jackson, the former trainer of Green who was released from his duties following the defeat, weighed in on what went wrong live this past Tuesday on Fight Fan Nation Radio.

“Three weeks prior to the fight, he quit running. Every night I’d send him to go running, he’d be walking,” voiced Jackson.

“He said he wasn’t physically strong enough to run. Well that tells you there’s a problem, that everything I was telling you was true. He didn’t want to get knocked out, because a knockout would have knocked him out of the tournament.

It was the opinion of many that after a few rounds of Ward manhandling him on the inside, Green went into a shell and went into survival mode in fear of being knocked out by a guy that Green had lamented “could not punch”. Yet it was Green who looked weary for much of the bout, surviving the distance of the fight yet never threatening to come away with a win.

“After the second round he had nothing in the tank,” Jackson continued.

“Prior to the fight with Ward I told Allan, ‘Listen, let’s get you a nutritionist or a dietitian to help with the weight’ and Allan’s response was, ‘Don’t worry about it, I got it.’ So as camp went on he wasn’t getting the proper sparring. He kept blaming Lou DiBella saying he wasn’t sending him the money for it and so I went out and got him the best sparring partners I could get him [Dyah Davis, son of Howard Davis, Jr., being one of them]. I got him the best sparring I could get him for no money. He finally got the expense money, I don’t know what he did with it, but he stayed at my house for free, drive one of my cars. I made sure everything he needed was there for him.”

“A lot of the blame lies within him and if he doesn’t want to accept it, that’s on him. Andre Ward did what he was supposed to do, his camp did what they were supposed to do, the money was there for them, and he did it. Where we went wrong with Allan is pretty much his own thing because he wants to run his own show, so he runs it. Only he knows what really went wrong with him in camp and why he didn’t do what he was supposed to do but come fight night, I knew what was wrong. He wasn’t physically prepared for that fight. There was a fight plan, but you can’t execute the fight plan if you can’t physically do what you need to do.”

So that leaves one to wonder, why stay at 168 if it handcuffed him so badly in his previous fight? It leads one to believe it has more to do with whom he is looking at across the ring this Saturday.

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If Allan Green has proven to be a classic tale of the underachiever, Glen Johnson has proven to be one of the complete opposite.

A man who had suffered nine defeats before finally making it to the top, Johnson proves inspiration to many fighters who have to overcome the odds to reach the pinnacle of the sport.

Johnson, now 41 years old but with no signs of quit, will get another shot at earning the glory he tasted in his shocking campaign in 2004. Johnson earned the nickname “The Road Warrior” having needed to take his show on the road and fight opposing fighters in their own backyards over the first half of his career. The only defeat out of fourteen that Johnson unquestionably lost was his first, a failed attempt to win the IBF middleweight title against a rising young Bernard Hopkins, who stopped Johnson in eleven one-sided rounds. Following the defeat, Johnson would officially lose seven of his next seventeen bouts despite the fact that you could make a case that his record is far more favorable. The defeat that stands out in this writer’s opinion as the worst travesty is the one he suffered at the hands of Italy’s Silvio Branco in Veneto, Italy in April of 2000.

Despite all the letdowns, and believe Johnson, there were many, Glen did what Allan Green has failed to do, and take advantage of his golden opportunity that he earned against Roy Jones, Jr. in September of 2004. Prior to that bout, Johnson had lifted his first world title in a close but clear victory over Clinton Woods in a rematch of a draw that many felt Johnson had won. With the title belt came the Jones, Jr. payday as many felt it was an easy way for Jones to win a title and setup a big money rematch with Antonio Tarver later on.

But Johnson would play the spoiler and score an emphatic ninth-round stoppage of Jones that left him laid out cold for many minutes. Just like that, Glen Johnson had done what nobody predicted he could and made the most out of it, winning a close fight against previous Roy Jones slayer Antonio Tarver to cap off an incredible, albeit unexpected year that earned him Fighter of the Year according to Ring Magazine. Since then, Johnson has won and he has lost, always beating those that he should and giving tough fights to those who most predict should take care of him easier than they did. Johnson has had a lot to due with the maturation of young fighters Chad Dawson and Tavoris Cloud despite losing to both of these fighters officially.

So when the call came for Johnson to take the now vacant Super Six spot left by Andre Dirrell, Johnson jumped at the opportunity despite the fact it would mean making the move to the 168-pound weight limit for the first time since just over ten years ago. Johnson is adamant he will be on target, but at 41 it’s hard to imagine it being that easy.

For these two fighters, it won’t be totally unfamiliar territory as the two have sparred many times in the past. John David Jackson was a witness to some of these exchanges, and it had an impact on who he is picking.

“Going into the fight with Glen, believe it or not I pick Glen to win,” Jackson asserted.

“Both of these guys have sparred in my gym numerous times. Glen has always gotten the better of the sparring sessions. He’s the more physical, the more dominating fighter. The first few rounds are going to be dangerous. If he can keep his right hand up and nullify Allan’s left hook, go to the body early, he’ll win it easy because he’s the more physical fighter. Allan needs more finesse and since the colon operation he hasn’t been the same fighter. He hasn’t been able to fight ten hard rounds let alone twelve. He was flat as ever against Ward so that tells you he’s not an inside fighter. If Glen does what Glen needs to do, he’ll win this fight handily.”

In the most recent Fight Camp 360 episode, Green made note of their sparring matches and agreed that more often than not, Glen got the better of him. Yet Green still makes note that he is confident heading into this bout and seems weary of how easily Johnson will make the weight.

Regardless of how it plays out, this bout is a good matchup on paper and will most definitely extend the career of one fighter as well as derail the career of the other. One guy has been to the top and remembers how great it is and wants to get back up there one more time. One fighter is still hungry for that first bit of success on that level and is looking to achieve it. Crossroads.