By Philip Michael Shange

Former champion Mikkel Kessler of Denmark is coming off a career-threatening injury. But he’s not looking at a tune-up. The Dane is targeting undefeated IBF champion Lucian Bute in his comeback fight. 

“I’m flying to Canada with my promoter Kalle Sauerland to get a closer look at Bute,” Mikkel Kessler told BT. “My plan is to fight in June, and it’d be great if we could work something out with Bute.”

Kessler and Sauerland plan to attend Bute’s title defense against European champion Brian Magee. Should Bute win, both camps are interested in the matchup, Sauerland said.

“They invited us to Canada to talk about the fight and things are looking really good.”

Coming off a spectacular win against Carl Froch in the Super Six World Boxing Classic, Kessler (43-2, 32 KOs) recaptured the WBC championship in a Fight of the Year candidate.

However, a nagging eye injury forced Kessler to relinquish his belt and his Super Six spot. Shortly after, Showtime signed Bute (27-0, 22 KOs) to an exclusive multi-fight contract which led to disagreements between the two camps.

The Kessler camp insists Kessler has the right to the fight the Super Six-champion – no matter what Bute says.

”Mikkel has the right to face the winner,” Sauerland said, adamantly. However a box-off between Bute and Kessler – two elite supple middleweights – would solve that problem.

“The winner of this fight gets the winner of the Super Six and the loser can get the loser of the Super Six final.”

Bute takes on Magee March 19 at the Bell Centre in Montreal.