By Sean McDaniel: Former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (36-2, 32 KO’s) has been made the mandatory challenger for WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (27-1, 20 KO’s). Before you get excited about this potential fight, you have to realize that Froch still has a fight coming up on May 21st in the Super Six tournament against Glen Johnson.

Froch will have to win this fight, which there are no guarantees that he can do this. If Froch wins this fight, he will still have a likely fight against WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward in the finals of the Super Six tourney. On top of that, Froch also has to worry about a potential fight against Mikkel Kessler, who the WBC gave the Emeritus status, which means Kessler can fight for the title without having to fight his way to a shot like most fighters.

Kessler already beat Froch last year by a 12 round decision. It’s unclear whether Kessler will choose to take a fight against Froch or even if Froch will have the title by the time Kessler presses the issue. It’s doubtful that Kessler will want to fight for the WBC belt if Ward gets a hold of it because he dominated Kessler in their fight in 2009, beating him by an 11th round technical decision. Kessler doesn’t match up well with Ward.

Pavlik vs. Froch would be a great fight because both of them are very similar sluggers that like to come forward and move in straight lines. Unfortunately, there are a lot of hurdles in the way before this fight ever takes place. If Froch gets beaten a couple of times by Johnson and Ward, there won’t be much excitement about a Froch-Pavlik fight.