Kessler’s promoter targeting Bute-Froch winner for next fight

By Boxing News - 05/20/2012 - Comments

Image: Kessler's promoter targeting Bute-Froch winner for next fight(Photo: Wende) By William Mackay: Newly crowned WBC Silver light heavyweight champion Mikkel Kessler’s stay at light heavyweight might be short after scoring a 4th round knockout victory over former Super Six contestant Allan Green last Saturday night in Copenhagen, Denmark. Kallie Sauerland, Kessler’s promoter, is interested in Kessler taking on the May 26th winner between Carl Froch and IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute.

It certainly makes sense because there’s really much there for Kessler in the light heavyweight division in terms of big important fights. The Froch-Bute winner will easily give Kessler his biggest payday if that’s what he’s interested in. If he stays at light heavyweight there are a lot of guys that could potentially give Kessler a lot of problems but without the him getting the big payday that he’d get against Bute or Froch. Kessler already has an interest built in with Froch after having beaten him by a close 12 round decision in 2010 in the Super Six tournament in Denmark. Froch wants to avenge the defeat, and to this day he still feels like he would have been the winner had the fight taken place in a neutral venue rather than in Denmark

For his part, Kessler says he’s interested in fighting rematches against Joe Calzaghe and Andre Ward to try and avenge losses to those fighters. The Calzaghe fight won’t happen obviously because Calzaghe has shown no interest in coming out of retirement in recent years. A fight against Ward would likely be overruled by Kessler’s promoter Sauerland, because it’s too dangerous of a fight for Kessler. He was pretty well dominated by Ward in their fight in 2009, and it’s likely that Ward simply has Kessler’s number. Besides that, the money for a Ward-Kessler fight likely would pale compared to a fight between him and Froch or Bute.

Kessler halted Green with a powerful left hook for a single punch knockout last night. However, Kessler looked vulnerable in getting knocked down by a right hand followed by a left to the body from Green in the 1st round. After the knockdown, Green pretty stopped punching for the remainder of the fight. It was kind of strange. He hurts Kessler, and then stops punching. It might have been a different story had Kessler fought an offensively oriented fighter that didn’t gas out or go timid the way that Green did after the 1st round. Kessler might be better off moving back down in weight if he wants avoid facing bigger guys that can punch, because the fighters get a lot better once you get past Green.



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