By Scott Gilfoid: WBA super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (42-1, 32 KO’s) goes into his November 21st Super Six tournament bout against 25-year-old challenger Andre Ward (20-0, 13 KO”s) as the favorite to win the Super Six tourney, and is expected to beat all the competition put in front of him. However, Kessler may have found that the talent in the Super Six tourney may be too much for, starting with his fight against the young Ward on November 21st.

Kessler has aged visibly in his year off from boxing and looked average in beating the little known Gusmyr Perdomo in a 4th round in September. If Perdomo had a better chin, he might have been able to win a decision over Kessler because he did well for awhile there.

Kessler has been given a lot of credit for things that he’s done in the past, beating fighters like Anthony Mundine, Librado Andrade, Dimitri Sartison, Eric Lucas, Markus Beyer, while losing a 12 round decision to Joe Calaghe in 2007. The wins for Kessler were good in his day, but not the kind of victories to get all excited about. Each one of the fighters in the Super Six tournament could probably get through Kessler’s resume with a similar record as him.

So, basically Kessler enters the Super Six tournament as a big mystery, because no one knows how well he’ll do because he really hasn’t faced great competition during his career. Face it, Kessler was beaten by the best opponent of his career, Joe Calzaghe. And Calzaghe would literally have his hands full if he were to take part in the Super Six tourney because of the talented fighters like Andre Dirrell, Ward, Jermain Taylor and to a certain extent Carl Froch and Arthur Abraham.

Kessler enters the tournament as one of the older fighters facing a some young guns in Ward and Dirrell. Kessler might find out quickly that the sport of boxing has caught up to him and he’s no longer the top dog in the super middleweight division. Kessler has had it easy the past two years, with his year off between October 2008 to September 2009, and more limited fighters that he’s faced, like Danilo Haussler and Sartison in 2008.

With his fight against Ward next month, Kessler is going to be asking a lot of his skills by facing one great fighter after another. He can forget about being the favorite with the so-called odds makers, because Kessler may find himself fighting just to make it out of the first group I portion of the tourney. I think he’s capable of beating his 2nd opponent Carl Froch without too many problems, but the fight against Ward looks to be a big loss for Kessler.

If you’re a betting person, I recommend you keep your eyes on Ward in this fight because Kessler is over-matched in this fight. Like someone said, Kessler is too basic to beat the best fighters in the Super Six. Kessler’s jabs, left hook and straight right are primitive weapons when matched against blazing fast puncher/boxers like Dirrell and Ward.

Taylor also will be a big problem for Kessler because he’s faster and more powerful than him. I think Kessler will be hurt by the fact that he’s become too accustomed to fighting European fighters and will be in shock when he faces the tough Americans Ward, Dirrell and Taylor.