By Eric Thomas: Former heavyweight champion of the world Lennox Lewis is picking WBA super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (42-1, 32 KO’s) to be victorious tonight in his Super Six tourney bout against challenger Andre Ward (20-0, 13 KO’s). Lewis, who retired from boxing in 2003, said this to Sporten.dk: “Mikkel Kessler is naturally a favorite. He has experience on its side. He has witnessed several major battles and tried many different styles of boxing than Andre Ward has, it sounds fine praise from one of the biggest box meaning names.”

Ward, 25, is taking a big step up in competition in facing the once beaten Kessler tonight at the Oracle Arena, in Oakland, California. Ward may have the home city advantage in the fight, but that’s about all he does have. Ward hasn’t fought anyone close to being as good as Kessler up until this point in his career. Ward did defeat slugger Edison Miranda by a lopsided 12 round decision on May 16th of this year, but there’s no comparison between Miranda and Kessler. Miranda is much slower, and less skilled in terms of boxing skills.

Lewis also feels that Kessler needs to be wary of the unbeaten Ward, remarking “He [Kessler] must not underestimate Ward’s willingness and hunger to maintain its status as undefeated. Meanwhile, Ward has an advantage in boxing at home.”

Kessler will be facing WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch next in 2010. There is hopes that Kessler will still have his WBA title at that time so that the fight will have more meaning than just having only one title on the line for the fight.

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Sonsona fails to make weight for title defense against Hernandez, vacates title

Unbeaten knockout artist World Boxing Organization super flyweight champion Marvin Sonsona (14-0, 12 KO’s) failed to make weight for his bout tonight against challenger Alejandro Hernandez (22-7-1, 11 KO’s) at the Casino Rama, Rama, Ontario, Canada. As such, the WBO title will be vacant for the fight. Hernandez, 23, will still have a chance to win it, but Sonsona won’t. Sonsona, 19, came in 2.6 pounds over the 115 pound weight limit for the fight, weighing in at 117.6.

Part of the problem is that Sonsona is still growing, and has gotten taller since picking up the WBO title with a 12 round decision over Jose Lopez in September. Sonsona will be now looking at moving up in weight three pounds to compete in the bantamweight division (118), where Sonsona will be facing top fighters like Hozumi Hasagawa, Yonnhy Perez, Anselmo Moreno and Fernando Montiel to name just a few.

At 5’7″, Sonsona has the height for the division, and he already punches as hard, if not harder, than most of the fighters at that weight class. The only thing that Sonsona needs to fix is his leaky defense. He was rocked a couple of times in his last fight against Lopez and he’s going to need to fix this problem before he goes up against the likes of Hasagawa and the other top fighters in the bantamweight division.