By Scott Gilfoid: On November 21st, World Boxing Association super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (42-1, 32 KO’s) will be facing what will likely be the toughest opponent of his 11-year pro career in his Super Six tournament battle against unbeaten and untested American Andre Ward (20-0, 13 KO’s) at the Oracle Arena, in Oakland, California. Kessler has been picked by everyone under the sun to win the Super Six tournament because of his excellent boxing skills and good right hand power.

However, Kessler appears to have slipped a couple of notches in the past year with his layoff from the sport and he is coming back against the wrong fighter at the wrong time. Kessler would have done well if they matched him up immediately against WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch instead of the young and blazing fast Ward. With his slow plodding style of fighting and equally slow hands speed, Froch would be the perfect opponent for Kessler to get a win against and look good in doing so.

However, Kessler had the bad luck of being matched up against Ward, who many of the boxing experts see as one of the best fighters in the Super Six tournament. That’s not good news for Kessler. Kessler’s accuracy, movement and timing looked way off against his last opponent Gusmyr Perdomo in September. Kessler took a lot of head shots from Perdomo, who didn’t look anything special to me.

Kessler was able to score a knockout in the 4th round, but it wasn’t the kind of performance that made you think that Kessler was the same fighter he was in the past. It doesn’t help that Kessler is now 30-years-old, coming off a year layoff and looking not nearly as sharp as he was in the past when he was beating fighters like Librado Andrade, Anthony Mundine, Markus Beyer and Eric Lucas with ease.

Kessler looks good against B and C level fighters, but when he finally stepped up to the plate in a fight against Joe Calzaghe in 2007, Kessler was shown lacking and beaten by a 12 round decision. That’s one of the problems with Kessler. He’s fought mostly beatable fighters and has had few real tests in his career. Now that he’s getting up there in age and facing a talented American with excellent offensive and defensive skills, Kessler is asking a lot of his old body.

It’s like having a car with 300,000 miles on it and asking it to take you on a 500 mile drive. It might make it, but chances are the car will break down at some point on the drive when taking on a big hill. This is why I see Kessler getting a boxing lesson from Ward on November 21st. But I wish this were the end of Kessler’s problems in the Super Six tourney.

I think Ward will knock the remaining talent out of Kessler’s body and weaken him for his subsequent bouts in the tourney against Froch and Jermain Taylor. My guess is that Kessler will lose to all three of his Super Six tourney opponents and end up being drummed out of the tournament without making it to the next level. After that, without his WBA super middleweight title, Kessler will be faced with making some hard choices about what to do with his sagging boxing career.