By Scott Gilfoid: Former super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (44-2, 33 KO’s) will be moving up in weight to the light heavyweight division on May 19th to try and salvage his career against a bottom level top 15 contender Allan Green (31-3, 21 KO’s) in a 12 round bout for the vacant WBC Silver light heavyweight title at the Parken, in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Kessler, 33, hasn’t had a significant fight since beating Carl Froch by a 12 round unanimous decision two years ago in April 2010. Kessler has fought only once since then, beating some little fighter by the name of Mehdi Bouadla by a 6th round stoppage last year in June.

Kessler hasn’t fought in 10 months and is facing a guy with good power and excellent hand speed. However, Green is a measuring stick for Kessler. Green is good enough to beat 2nd tier fighters but not good enough to beat the top tier guys, as we saw in his one-sided loss to Andre Ward and his stoppage defeat to Glen Johnson in the Super Six tournament last year.

If Kessler can’t beat Green, then it’s time for Kessler to hang up the gloves because he won’t have a chance at beating top talent like Chad Dawson and Bernard Hopkins. Kessler wants to fight the winner of the Hopkins-Dawson fight that takes place on April 28th, and he’ll have no problems getting that fight IF he beats Green.

If he doesn’t beat Green then Kessler should probably hang up the gloves and look for another line of work. Of course, he could still go after the WBO champion Nathan Clevery because that’s an easy mark that even Kessler at 70% of what he used to be would beat. Cleverly would get out-boxed and out-punched by Kessler and I could see a KO victory. If Kessler’s into picking easy marks, then Cleverly is definitely the way to go if he wants to extend his career. But Kessler needs to beat Green if he wants the Dawson-Hopkins winner because that’s a prerequisite.