Mikkel Kessler (born March 1, 1979) is a Danish professional boxer, current Super Middleweight World Boxing Council World Champion and Super Middleweight World Boxing Association World Champion.

In his professional career he is undefeated with a record of 39-0 and 29 knockouts.

Mikkel originally started campagning as a Light-Middleweight and then Middleweight for first 22 fights of his career. He was very fast dubbed with the nickname "Hitman" by his promoter, having won 16 of his first 22 fights by knockout (KO).

After 3 years and 22 fights, Kessler settled in the Super Middleweight division, aiming towards a world title shot and thereby opting not to aim for the European Boxing Union (EBU) title first. Mikkel continued his hard hitting streak, dispatching 6 of his first 7 opponents by KO, thereby improving his record to 29-0 with 22 KO.

On November 29, 2002, Kessler fought for his first championship and totally outclassed former World Boxing Council Super Middleweight champion Dingaan Thobela over twelve rounds to become International Boxing Association champion. He gave up this belt to fight for the more recognized WBC International title on April 11, 2003 vs. Craig Cummings. Kessler won by KO3.

He defended his newly won crown on three occasions before finally hitting it big on November 12, 2004. His stablemate, Mads Larsen, another Danish World Class fighter, was set to challenge Manny Siaca for the World Boxing Association championship in Copenhagen. Larsen was injured in training and Mikkel took the fight on short notice, winning the title.

Due to injuries on both hands and his back, Kessler has only defended his title on three occasions since winning it, beating Anthony Mundine in Sydney in June 2005 Eric Lucas in January of 2006. And recently (March 24th 2007) defending his title against Librado Andrade, who was also then undefeated.

On October 14, 2006, Kessler was elevated to WBA "super champion" status after winning the WBC title in a unification battle against WBC World Champion Markus Beyer, at the Parken Stadium. He won by knockout at 2:58 in round 3.

Following Kessler's elevation to super Champion status, Anthony Mundine won the regular WBA World Championship in a knockout win against rival Sam Soliman on March 7, 2007.

Kessler defended his WBA/WBC titles on March 24th 2007 at the Parken Stadium against WBC mandatory challenger Librado Andrade, from Mexico. The fight seemed very one-sided, with Kessler throwing multiple combinations at will. Nevertheless, the fight was in no way a runaway. Andrade refused to go down, despite being wobbled repeatedly. Kessler showed his immense respect for this performance by hugging Andrade prior to the start of the 12th round.

Following the Andrade fight, Kessler made another open challenge to WBO super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe to fight for a unification of the titles.
Source : Wikipedia