ANDRE WARD W tech. dec. 11 MIKKEL KESSLER

Showtime’s Super Six tournament got just what it needed on Saturday night — a dazzling display by an American fighter against a more experienced opponent who had been widely expected to be too much for him.

With U.S. boxers beaten by Europeans in the tournament’s opening bouts, Andre Ward came good, not only defeating but dominating Mikkel Kessler to capture the Dane’s WBA super middleweight title.

As Al Bernstein observed in the Showtime commentary, not even those who picked Ward to win could have expected a performance like this.

Ward was a revelation. He outboxed Kessler, outpunched him and outfought him. He backed him up and roughed him up.

Kessler, the blue-eyed Viking Warrior who seemed to have ice water in his veins, was never allowed to get into the fight. Ward got off to a dream start with authoritative punching and swift movement in the first couple of rounds — and he kept the dream alive.

Ward was baffling and bemusing Kessler at every turn, attacking him, moving around him, switching to southpaw and back again.

Long before the 11th round ending, with Kessler cut over both eyes, Ward had looked, astonishingly, a different class to the champion.

Head clashes caused the cuts — specifically the one over the Dane’s right eye — and so Ward won by unanimous technical decision instead of by TKO, but the victory was what mattered.

Ward has had his share of doubters, those who felt he lacked the mental and physical toughness to beat someone as strong and seasoned as Kessler. However, Ward did what he had promised he would do — he put everything together in a perfect blend of boxing and fighting. Kessler looked confused, his confidence severely shaken very early in the fight. Although Kessler was too polite to come right out and say it, I think he believed he was going to walk through Ward. Instead he found himself being challenged in a resolute, physical way. Ward did what I like to see a fighter do — he came out and asserted himself.

Kessler, make no mistake, was being hurt. He knew he couldn’t just march through Ward. He couldn’t lay back, jab and try to time Ward for counters, either, because the Olympic gold medallist was too fast.

It was a sight to behold — a fundamentally outstanding, elite-level fighter struggling to find the answers to problems he couldn’t solve.

Ward did some holding, but so did Kessler. It was Ward, though, who for the most part was punching on the inside, including the deployment of a spiteful left uppercut.

True, Ward came in with his head lowered and Kessler got the worst of collisions, but I did not see anything that could be called intentional butting. Ward was determined to keep his grip on the fight, and at times this included punching and then crowding right in on Kessler to shut down the Danish fighter’s offense. In other words, Ward was fighting the fight he needed to fight to achieve victory, and in turn he was stylish and smart, rough and tough, and it was all a bit too much for Kessler to handle.

Kessler complained afterwards about being butted, but boxing can be a harsh sport at this level and I recalled what John Conteh, the former light-heavyweight champion, once told me about head clashes, which was that he didn’t butt anyone intentionally but that he made sure he had his head in the “right position” should an impact occur. It was as if Ward took a leaf out of the Conteh copybook.

On this night, finally, Ward showed that he is a fighter as well as a boxer, and that he can hold his own in the trenches as well as looking smooth when he stretches the distance between himself and an opponent.

What impressed me most of all about Ward, though, was his strength of purpose. In the biggest fight of his life, in front of a hometown crowd and the millions watching on television, Ward had the steely minded resolve of a boxer who will not allow himself to be beaten.

Kessler didn’t look as effective as he has in the past for a simple reason — Ward wouldn’t let him.