By Keith Idec

Mikkel Kessler won’t have to go far to call out Andre Ward if he defeats Carl Froch in their rematch Saturday night in London.

Ward will be seated ringside at O2 Arena, where he’ll call the fight for HBO.

Kessler clearly wants another shot at the undefeated Ward, who beat Kessler by technical decision 3½ years ago in Oakland, Calif. The Danish star still stayed away from talking about a Ward rematch while discussing the Froch rematch on a recent conference call.

“No, I don’t think about Ward at all,” Kessler said. “I want to think about Carl, you know? He’s the kind of fighter who wants to fight.”

Yes, that was a not-so-subtle shot at Ward (26-0, 14 KOs), whom Kessler claims used his head to cause the three cuts on Kessler’s face that led to the early end of their scheduled 12-round fight.

Ward was an underdog entering their November 2009 bout, which was part of Showtime’s “Super Six World Boxing Classic.” But the 2004 Olympic gold medalist mostly dominated Kessler, went on to win that 168-pound tournament and now is regularly listed No. 2 on most mythical pound-for-pound lists.

“I wasn’t there that day,” Kessler said. “Everything went wrong. We also learned about that, me and [promoter] Kalle [Sauerland]. And when you are not fighting on your home turf you’ve got to also have a lot of other things clear before you go over.”

Sauerland tried to secure a rematch with Ward, but says Ward wasn’t interested in traveling abroad to fight Kessler again. The German promoter wishes Ward would behave like Kessler (46-2, 35 KOs), who defeated Froch (30-2, 22 KOs) in his native Denmark during the “Super Six,” yet agreed to face Froch again on the British star’s home turf.

“Look, we spoke to Dan Goossen,” Sauerland said, referring to Ward’s promoter. “We spoke to him about a Ward fight. There wasn’t much interest to come to Denmark.”

Only one of Ward’s 10 fights since June 2008 has taken place outside of California. Even that fight, his “Super Six” championship victory over Froch, occurred in neutral territory (Atlantic City in December 2011).

 “Well, we’re not going to moan and groan about [the loss to Ward],” Saulerland said, “but the fight out there is the Froch-Kessler fight and that is a fight which has captured imaginations and sold tickets [18,000]. I don’t see Ward selling tickets. And both guys, Froch and Kessler, are, in their own right, stars in their countries.

“I think it’s time for Ward, you know, eventually to go and travel and to do things that these guys have already done. But as I said, we’re talking about Froch-Kessler at the moment and after that we’ll see what happens.”

Though he beat both boxers convincingly, the Froch-Kessler winner would have to be considered as a future opponent for Ward, especially since HBO has invested in televising their rematch. Ward hasn’t fought since destroying Chad Dawson on Sept. 8 in Oakland, largely because he underwent shoulder surgery in January.

Once he’s healthy, Ward won’t have many attractive opponents at 168 pounds. Moving up to 175 pounds wouldn’t really help his cause, either, because Ward dominated Dawson and Bernard Hopkins, whom Dawson defeated last year, has repeatedly said he won’t fight Ward.

“My thoughts go to Carl Froch and training for him,” Kessler said. “And after that fight, we can talk about Ward.”

Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.