By Sean McDaniel: Former WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (43-2, 32 Ko’s) will be fighting for the first time in over a year when he steps into the ring to fight French contender Mehdi Bouadia 22-3, 10 KO’s) in a fight in Parken, Copenhagen, Denmark. This fight will serve as a tune-up bout for Kessler to get back in the swing of things and help him move forward to an eventual shot against IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute at some point in the future.

Kessler took a lot of punishment in his last two fights against Andre Ward and Carl Froch, and by putting him in with the little known Bouadia, Kessler’s handlers are giving him a soft opponent to beat. Forget about Bouadia’s number #5 ranking by the World Boxing Organization, Bouadia is more of a 2nd tier fighter than anything resembling a top tier guy. He’s short, very, very slow and don’t move well.

Bouadia is what you call a plodder and as such is perfect for Kessler to beat up. It’s a fight that Kessler should win without any problems. However, Kessler can’t be put in with too many fighters like Bouadia after this bout because the clock is ticking on his time left in the sport and he’s took old to be fighting 2nd tier fighters one after another. Kessler needs to take a tune up and then take on a live body. If not Bute, then someone good like Sakio Bika, Marcus Johnson or Peter Quillin. Those are decent but very beatable guys for Kessler to pick up a nice win and sharpen his skills. I can see Kessler stopping Quillin and Johnson and giving a boxing lesson to Bika.