Kessler To Fight Larsen?

By Boxing News - 01/19/2009 - Comments

kessler53446By Erik Schmidt: In article from Per Ake Persson today at Eastsideboxing.com, Per states that World Boxing Association super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (41-1, 31 KOs) has agreed to fight Mads Larsen. However, there’s nothing definite yet. If the fight does take place, it would likely occur in April. Larsen is also from Denmark, but is now fighting out of Germany and fighting for Sauerland Event.

Larsen recently turned down a title fight with IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute. A fight with Kessler or Bute would be a very tough obstacle for the thirty-five year old Larsen, whose prime boxing years was way back in 2003. Now, six years later following a four year retirement from 2003 to 2007, Larsen looks a lot slower and not nearly the same fighter he was back then. Matched softly, Larsen has been able to win six fights since making his comeback in 2007.

Kessler, 29, lost his WBA/WBC super middleweight titles in a 12-round loss to Joe Calzaghe in November 2007. Kessler tried to get an immediate rematch with Calzaghe, but the Welsh fighter wasn’t interested in tempting fate twice. Kessler then defeated Dimitri Sartison to win back his WBA super middleweight title in June 2008.

In October, Kessler destroyed his mandatory challenger Danilo Haussler in a 3rd round TKO. Since then, Kessler has called out the top fighters in the super middleweight and light heavyweight divisions, calling out Jermain Taylor, Chad Dawson, among many others, without any luck. Considered to be the best fighter in the super middleweight division, Kessler is someone that most fighters don’t want to fight due to his excellent boxing skills.

Kessler might not win much praise should he go ahead and fight Larsen, as Mads isn’t well known outside of Germany and Denmark, and the boxing fans that do know of him, aren’t entirely impressed with what he has left of his skills. They see him as a faded fighter who’s been carefully matched to avoid tough opponents. This opinion may or may not be correct but it’s hard to tell, because Larsen hasn’t yet fought any opponents that one would consider to be tough since making his comeback in 2007.

To be sure, Larsen would have been a hard fight for Kessler six years ago, but that’s probably not the case now after all these years. In appearance, Larsen looks pretty much the same as he did back in 2003, but when he fights much slower now, having lost much of his hand speed. He’s also become totally reliant on his left hand, by some accounts and no longer has any power in his right hand.



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