By Eric Thomas: Former two-time super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (44-2, 33 KO’s) isn’t interested in fighting IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute after Kessler’s fight against WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz (40-2, 23 KO’s) on November 5th at the Parken, in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Kessler is more interested in facing the winner of the Super Six tournament fight between Carl Froch and Andre Ward. Kessler, 32, figures the winner of that fight will be Froch, a fighter that Kessler beat last year by a 12 round decision. Froch wants the rematch with Kessler, and blamed his previous loss on poor judging and a small interruption in his training for the fight that left Froch less than 100% for the fight.

“Lucian Bute I don’t think about so much,” Kessler said in an interview at eastsideboxing.com’s On The Ropes Boxing Radio. “I’d rather think about the winner of the Super Six. Lucian Bute is a great fighter. I have not a bad word at all, so I’m going to be excicted to watch him against Glen Johnson.”

Kessler is perhaps better off taking on the Froch-Ward winner, because whoever wins that fight will emerge as a much more popular fighter in the United States compared to Bute, who has really hurt himself in the past three years by taking on less than impressive opposition while defending his International Boxing Federation title.

In hindsight, Bute should have participated in the Super Six tourney like the rest of the top super middleweight contenders. Instead of facing the best fighters for the past two years like Ward and Froch has done, Bute has defended his title against a whole host if little known opponents. Kessler was slated to fight Bute, but the negotiations broke down because the offer wasn’t big enough for Kessler’s liking.

Kessler said “I’m not afraid of Lucian Bute. Nobody wants to fight for free. That was a big problem…The offer was very bad.”

Kessler did poorly in a loss to Ward in 2009, and lost every round of the fight. Kessler and his fans have mentioned that Ward hit him with his head on a few occasions. However, the headbutts didn’t occur until well into the fight and Kessler was already hopelessly behind by the time Ward accidentally clashed heads with him.