By Scott Gilfoid: With World Boxing Council super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler pulling out of the Super Six tournament today due to a severe eye injury, the tournament now needs an immediate replace as soon as possible so that American Allan Green has an opponent for next month. Green was supposed to be fighting Kessler on September 25th, but that fight is now canceled with Kessler’s eye injury. I had a feeling that Kessler wouldn’t have enough to make it through his next fight because he had taken a royal pounding against Andre Ward and to some extent in his fight against Carl Froch, which Kessler won by a 12 round decision on April 24th. Kessler’s eyes were badly swollen and cut up in both of his fights in the Super Six tournament and he no longer looked like the same dominating fighter he once was two years ago. He looked older, less powerful and slower.

Showtime needs to try and go after IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute to see if he’ll interested in replacing Kessler. I don’t think he will. I see Bute continuing to defend his title against the mediocre opposition that have been served up to him. Other than Kessler, there’s WBO super middleweight champion Roberto Stieglitz, the German based fighter. However, I think he would be a horrible replacement because I still can’t forget how badly he was dominated by LIbrade Andrade in the past, and I don’t want to see a punching bag replace Kessler. Russian Dimitri Sartison fights in the same stand up European style as Kessler, but he’s pretty basic and would be likely killed by Dirrell and Ward. I don’t like him either. Andrade’s no good because he doesn’t seem like the same fighter he once was in the first fight with Bute. I’m not interested in seeing Sakio Bika as a replacement. I think he would be a good fighter, but I think they need someone with better offensive skills than him.

Forget about Kelly Pavlik. He already said he would never fight in the Super Six tournament, saying “Let them beat each other up. Let them ruin their careers for peanuts.” Besides that, Pavlik would probably be destroyed by every fighter in the tournament.