By Erik Schmidt: WBA super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (40-1, 30 KOs) will be making his first title defense of his World Boxing Association title on Saturday night against German Danilo Haussler (29-3-1, 7 KOs) in a scheduled 12-round bout at the Weser-Ems-Halle, in Oldenburg, Niedersachsen, Germany. Kessler, 29, would have preferred not to have had to face Haussler, 33, his mandatory challenger at all, as the fight has failed to interest most boxing fan other than mostly die hard Kessler fans. Kessler would have liked to have fought someone like Carl Froch, or even Kelly Pavlik, before he was recently defeated by Bernard Hopkins, rather than the very beatable Haussler.

For a number #1 mandatory challenger, Haussler’s credentials leave more than a little to be desired. He’s lost three out of his last eleven fights, with one of them being a draw, two by split decision and one by majority decision. That’ not exactly the type of resume that most mandatory challengers’ possess, and it’s doubtful that Haussler will be able last more than a handful of rounds before being knocked out by Kessler. In fairness to Haussler, he’s been beaten by mostly good super middleweights like Mads Larsen, Rudy Markussen, and Mohammad Said.

Each of them good quality fighters, but clearly not in the league of someone like Kessler, who could probably beat the whole bunch of them on a single night if he wanted to. Despite having little, if any power to speak of or size, Haussler does appear to have a good chin. He’s yet to have been stopped in his 11 year, 33 fight boxing career. That said, Haussler has off his feet four times in his career, being knocked down three times by Markussen in Jul 2004 and once by Said in December 2004. There’s no shame in being knocked down by either of them, though it does seem to suggest that Haussler may visit the canvas more than once on this Saturday’s bout with Kessler, who hits harder than both Markussen and Said.

Kessler, for his part, is coming off a mediocre 12th round stoppage over Dimitri Sartison in June. Sartison hit Kessler with some really big right hand shots in the first round, even stunning him at one point in the round. Kessler took over the fight after the first, however, and controlled the fight until stopping Sartison with a flurry of shots in the 12th, knocking him down in the process However, Kessler was hit frequently by powerful right hands from Sartison from the 1st until the 8th, from which point Sartison tired out and was mostly limited to taking punishment.

In his bout before that, Kessler lost a disappointing 12-round unanimous decision to Joe Calzaghe in November 2007. Kessler fought well in the 1st half of the fight, but was quickly out-boxed by Calzaghe, who took control over the fight in the second half and never looked back. Perhaps Kessler’s best win of his career was against Librado Andrade, an aggressive, non-stop puncher, known for his high punch output, who Kessler easily defeated by a one-sided 12-round unanimous decision in March 2007.

It’s interesting to note that Andrade has rebounded well since that defeat, winning three consecutive fights and is the current number #1 IBF contender. On Friday night, he’ll be challenging IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute for his title in Montreal, Canada.