By Dan Ambrose: On November 6th, 41-year-old former IBF light heavyweight champion Glen Johnson (50-14-2, 34 KO’s) will be stepping in to replace the injured Mikkel Kessler in a fight against Allan Green (29-2, 20 KO’s) in the stage 3 part of the Super Six tournament at MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Johnson hasn’t fought at super middleweight in ages and he’s now having major problems just making the light heavyweight limit of 175.

In his last fight in August against IBF light heavyweight champion Tavoris Cloud, Johnson made the weight but then put on 15 pounds of water weight after re-hydating. Johnson looked overweight. Making the 175 mark is one thing, but now asking the 41-year-old Johnson to lose an additional seven pounds has me wondering whether he can even make the weight. If Johnson does make the 168 pounds for the Green fight, I’m betting Johnson is going to quickly gain a massive amount of weight after the weight and will likely be fighting against close or at 190.

At 41, it’s asking way too much of Johnson to lose that kind of weight and expect him to perform at high level. Johnson hasn’t looked good in two out of his last three fights. He trained well for his rematch with Chad Dawson in November 2009. Indeed, Johnson’s one and only sparring partner for the camp was International Boxing Federation super middleweight champion Lucian Bute. However, Johnson seemed to have left his best in the training camp, because he had nothing come fight time. He threw very few punches and looked weak and slow. J

ohnson rebounded from that defeat and took out super middleweight contender Yusaf Mack in February. It was a great performance from Johnson. But he once again looked out of shape and unable to get any power on his shots in his recent loss to IBF light heavyweight champion Tavoris Cloud. Johnson just looked weak, like taking the weight off had taken everything out of him. Allan Green had the same problem in his 12 round unanimous decision loss to Andre Ward in June. Green struggled to make the weight and ended up stripping off muscle along with fat.

That left him drained come fight time. It could be the winner of the Johnson vs. Green fight will be the fighter that is less weight drained. It’s hard to pick a fighter because both of them looked so horrible in their recent fights. Johnson may be able to slap his way to a win, but if Green is able to connect with at least 10 hard shots per round, he likely will beat Johnson based on the harder connects.