AFTER Chris Eubank Jr’s collision with George Groves at the Manchester arena on Saturday and Callum Smith’s February 24 semi-final with Juergen Braehmer, the super-middleweight final of the World Boxing Super Series is targeted to take place on June 2 at the O2 arena in London (there is some limited room manoeuvre on the date depending on George Groves’ recovery from injury). “It’s something special. To see the trophy being lifted for the first time after four years of working on the project and the year now on the road with it,” promoter Kalle Sauerland said. A new season of the World Boxing Super Series will take place. The draw in fact is expected to be held the following week. Two weight classes will definitely feature and a potentially a third. Likely divisions could be bantamweight, lightweight and light-heavyweight. “We’re looking first of all at two, but a third one’s on the agenda. Definitely two but potentially a third,” Sauerland told Boxing News. “We’ll announce a lighter weight first; bantam, feather, lightweight, super-fly, we’re looking at those weights.” “They’re all talking about going to light-heavy as well,” he added. “The light-heavies and, hey, [maybe] cruisers, again.” Sauerland continued, “I think the first season was about me being confident of getting names in. I think if you look at the reaction, most of those guys want to go in. People who don’t go in the tournament, they’re going to be a bit found out now aren’t they? I’ll name and shame. I’m terrible like that. [Anthony] Dirrell, [David] Benavidez are the biggest ones. [James] DeGale, to be fair we were going to talk to DeGale and then he got injured. We were going to talk to him about the tournament, he would have been a great addition but then he got injured. So c’est la vie.” He added, “The guys who are confident of winning they also know that’s their fight calendar. The World Boxing Super Series is looking at involving big names in the next edition, like Raymundo Beltran, Jorge Linares and even Vasyl Lomachenko. “Lightweight from a UK perspective, you’ve got [Luke] Campbell, [Anthony] Crolla, [Ricky] Burns. You look across obviously in America, Linares, Beltran, Loma,” Sauerland said. “There are some interesting names. For me, if he wouldn’t go in, we’d still make a great tournament.” At bantamweight they’d also look at UK boxers, like Ryan Burnett, Jamie McDonnell and Paul Butler. “If people don’t want to go in, they don’t want to go in. You can’t force them. They’d earn more money in the tournament than anywhere else. They’d have a better platform than anywhere else, get more prestige,” Sauerland concluded
Not really, Moruti Mthalane who like Inoue is 5'5 with a 66 inch reach got to him, then The Monster Ladyboy can too.
Very happy to hear they’re looking at light heavyweight. Previously it sounded like they were only going to do bantam and lightweight. Even if you prefer those divisions, the lighter divisions would be the “budget” option. Which to me would mean things are going poorly and the whole WBSS thing wasn’t going to pan out.
Why not keen on bantam? If they did it like CW & SMW this season, with a mixture of established championship level guys and up-and-coming prospects, they could have a quarterfinal draw that resembled this: Ryan Burnett vs. Takuma Inoue Luis Nery vs. Manny Rodriguez Suriyan Kaikanha vs. Nordine Oubaali Arthur Villanueva vs. Duke Micah idk about you but I'd watch the **** outta that...
No doubt there are prospects in the division, but it's just not mine division, simply because it's way harder to score a KO, plus most of the fights won't be made in Europe which means I have to wake up at 4-5 am to watch the fights. And you know... Sometimes when you have huge expectations about a fight but it appears to be crap, you feel bad because you woke up so early... For sure it will be interesting because most of the top guys are around the same level, but I feel like in the lower weight classes those "super" fights are happening anyways. The division is not suffering from the problem that most divisions have - too much money and greed involved.
I know that Shaefer is pushing for bantam really hard but it would be a complete disaster, nobody would watch that. I can't imagine no major US TV network being interested in bantam as well. I hope they choose super fly instead, much better match-ups there and better names as well.
Super middle wasn't great weight to pick, lot of big names missing or injured. But at least they sold this to the UK audience. I will watch super middle final only if Korobov enters. I'm not eager to see Callum Smith/Braemer 2 or Groves/Smith in the final.
If Mthlane is 5'5 then Donaire must be 5'8. Mthlane is no joke, but Tete was still a bit green back then, and a 5'9 guy likely has a tough weight cut. Tete moved from 112 after that fight no?