Credit: Mark Vester at Boxing Scene
This was rumored before, but then it seemed like he was heading to 175 to fight for the Danny Green-vacated WBA title. Instead, he'll stay at 168 to fight Anthony Mundine for the ridiculous WBA "regular" title (Joe Calzaghe is WBA "super" champion).
Kessler already beat Mundine in 2005, winning on unanimous decision scores of 120-108, 116-112 and 117-113. The fight was hardly competitive, will only be interesting to those in Australia, and just presents no challenge to Kessler.
It's the type of fight that just begs people to further dog Kessler. It's not that Mundine is a bad fighter, or that it's his fault that calling him "champion" is a joke. It's just that we've seen this already, it wasn't close, and this is what Kessler is skipping a Showtime date with Edison Miranda for?
In business ways, you can't really blame Mikkel. He'll make good money for an easier fight (though I thought he'd beat Miranda, too) and get a trinket to carry around to boot. But his management team is pretty bush league, and they're making Kessler look bad in the PR department.
In other news, Yuriorkis Gamboa (9-0, 8 KO) has an opponent for his May 17 Boxing After Dark fight. Darling Jimenez (23-2-2, 14 KO) will oppose the bar none most exciting young fighter in the game on that fireworks-promising triple-header. Not a bad replacement for Marcos Ramirez, all things considered.