By Eric Thomas: Mikkel Kessler (44-2, 33 KO’s) will be fighting on November 5th against WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz (40-2, 23 KO’s) at the Parken, Copenhagen, Denmark. Kessler, 32, has previously held the WBA and WBC super middleweight titles.

Kessler chose to relinquish the WBC title last year after suffering an eye injury while in the Super Six tournament. Kessler took 14 months off from boxing and came back in June of this year to stop a badly overmatched Mehdi Bouadla in the 6th round. Kessler looked great in the fight, as if he had never been away from the sport.

Rather than take on some more tune-up fights, Kessler decided to go right after one of the super middleweight champions so that he could pick up a title and then use the title to get a better deal against other champions. His management attempted to put together a fight against IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute before the Stieglitz fight, but the offer was reportedly way too low for Kessler’s liking and he decided to move on.

“The fight against Robert Stieglitz will be exciting. He is technically very strong and he deserves to be holding that belt, but I think that I am better and I will take the title away from him.”

Kessler will have to deal with Stieglitz’s power and in and out attacks in this fight. Stieglitz has a good jab and a nifty 1-2 combination. He’s not particularly fast but he can fight well on the inside. Kessler is going to have to try and box Stieglitz if he wants to get out of the fight in one piece and not take a lot of punishment in this fight. Stieglitz could pull off an upset. A pre-2009 version of Kessler would make easy work of a fighter like Stieglitz, but Kessler isn’t as good as he was earlier in his career and he’s vulnerable if you attack him hard and with speed.

Kessler wants to fight the winner of the October 29th Super Six finals bout between Andre Ward and Carl Froch. Kessler already beat Froch by a 12 round decision, but lost to Ward by an 11th round technical decision defeat in 2009. Kessler would very much like to get a second chance against Ward but in a neutral venue outside of Ward’s home city of Oakland, California. That’s where they fought last time and Kessler seemed uncomfortable from the very start with the loud pro-Ward crowd.