By William Mackay: Former WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (43-2, 32 KO’s) faces little known fringe contender Mehdi Bouadla (22-3, 10 KO’s) on Saturday night in a tune-up bout at the Parken, in Copenhagen, Denmark. Kessler is expected to easily win the fight by a knockout and then move forward to his next fight. There was talk of Kessler possibly facing IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (28-0, 23 KO’s) next.

However, Kessler’s management are reportedly not happy with the offers coming from Bute’s camp this proposed figth and are now looking at the option of facing World Boxing Organization (WBO) super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz (40-2, 23 KO’s), who they see as just as good a fighter as Bute and a fight that can be easily put together.

A Kessler-Stieglitz fight sounds like not a bad idea for Kessler, because at it’s a good tune-up fight to get ready for Bute at some time in the future, and it’s also a fight because it would give Kessler a shot at winning an easy title. Having a belt in his possession will no doubt help in putting together a fight with Bute in the future.

But first things first. Kessler has to first get by Bouadla on Saturday night if he wants to move on to bigger and better things like Stieglitz or even Bute. Bouadla can punch a little and could be problems for Kessler if he’s not the same fighter he was when he defeated Carl Froch by a 12 round decision in his last fight a year ago in April. Kessler is going to have to be wired if he doesn’t want to take a lot of punishment in this fight and risk getting hurt.