By Jim Dower: Mikkel Kessler (44-2, 33 KO’s) will be trying out a new division in his fight against Allan Green (31-3, 21 KO’s) for the vacant WBC Silver light heavyweight crown on May 19th at the Parken, in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Kessler had been poised to fight WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz on April 14th, but Kessler’s injured right hand needed more time for it to heal. Instead of looking to get yet another postponement, Kessler moved up to 175 to see if he can get some big fights up there.

Kessler doesn’t have a lot to choose from at 175 unfortunately. If Kessler beats Green, he can try an face the Chad Dawson – Bernard Hopkins winner or go after champions Tavoris Cloud, Beibut Shumenov and Nathan Cleverly. None of them have huge fan bases. The only one that would seem to be worthwhile is Hopkins, but he’s not likely to get past Dawson on April 28th. Kessler doesn’t want to face Hopkins coming off a loss. He wants the winner because it won’t fly facing Hopkins if Dawson takes care of him.

Green, 6’2″, will have his say on whether Kessler can move on to bigger and better things. Green has a lot of hand speed and power. What’s missing is a healthy work rate, inside fighting ability, a good chin, and more angles to deliver his shots.

Green is kind of predictable in his punch assortment, and his work rate is poor. I don’t know that Green can fix that problem, though, because fighters with limited stamina tend to stay in the capacity rather than suddenly finding themselves capable of throwing a ton punches. He’s not going to be able to do that. But what Green can do is make his shots count by looking to load up as much as possible. He’s not going to be able to out-box a fighter like Kessler. That’s not going to happen. The best way for Green to win is look to blast Kessler out early. He also could help himself if he works on his jab so that he can get the better of Kessler at a distance the same way Andre Ward did in his win over Kessler in 2009.