WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler says injured eye not improving
By Matt Stein for Boxing News
Former WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (43-2, 32 KO’s) is still having problems with his injured right eye. Kessler, 31, dropped out of the Super Six tournament recently due to his complaints of not being able to see well out of his right eye, which he injured in his first Super Six tournament bout a year ago against American Andre Ward in November 2009. In an article at Spn.dk, Kessler says “It is still the same. There is no improvement yet. I don’t spare. I do not train hard. I am not in doubt that it will be better. The only question is, when it will be.” Kessler, 31, injured his right eye in his fight with Andre Ward on November 21st last year in his first fight in the Super Six tournament.
Kessler complained in the later rounds that he was having problems seeing out of the eye. He stuck it out until the fight was stopped in the 11th due to both of Kessler’s being cut. After healing up, Kessler returned on April 24th and defeated WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch to capture his WBC super middleweight title. Kessler stood in front of Froch the entire fight and beat him to the punch, but also took a lot of shots to both of his eyes.
Following that fight, Kessler was supposed to be facing American Allan Green on September 25th in the stage 3 part of the Super Six tourney. Kessler was heavily favored to win that fight. However, he suddenly pulled out of the tournament after saying that a doctor in Germany had advised him to take nine months off to rest the muscles of his right eye. However, it’s unclear whether rest will fix Kessler’s vision problems. If not, then Kessler may be facing retirement unless he is open to fighting with only partial vision. He did an admirable job of fighting with only one good eye in his right with Froch, but against better fighters than Froch, like Ward, Kessler might find himself in big trouble again. Kessler has already missed a year from his career due to management problems between 2008 and 2009.
He’s going to be missing nine more months, maybe more, while letting his eye heal. It’s almost impossible to see Kessler a factor in the division if he waits much longer unless most of the top super middleweights move up in weight. IBF champion Lucian Bute is already talking moving up to light heavyweight next year. Froch, and Ward are also thinking about moving up as well.
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