~ SUPER SIX WORLD BOXING CLASSIC - R1 is over as Ward dominates Kessler ~

Both Kessler and Ward won their tune-up, so the SUPER SIX WORLD BOXING CLASSIC is now definitely on! They'll fight each other on the scheduled date of November 21st. Both the Taylor-Abraham and Dirrell-Froch wars will happen on October 17th as scheduled.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m1EuwgOndohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS-Gw9ybG7c


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aYB2N5F_iMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOdtb--fheY

 

Chris! Someone oughta have a word with the Pudwill family about fighting worldclass opponents before one of them gets seriously hurt.atsch

 

Abraham TKO Taylor
Froch TKO Dirrell
Kessler UD Ward

 

Froch vs Direll Froch by KO

Abraham vs Taylor 50/50

Kessler vs Ward Kessler by KO before 8th round

 

We're just 2,5 weeks away from SUPER SIX WORLD BOXING CLASSIC: Round 1, which is

ABRAHAM - TAYLOR in Berlin
FROCH - DIRRELL in Nottingham

Both on October 17th.

 

Abraham via robbery.
Froch TKO late or Dirrell SD.

 

Abraham mid to late round KO
Froch late round KO
Kessler mid round KO

 

Taylor will beat Abraham by easy UD, this fight probably won't be that competitive. It's a really, really big risk going for Abraham - he's not gonna outpoint Taylor AND he doesn't tire his opponents through attrition. It's a massive, massive risk going for him and I've no idea why so many people are.

I think Dirrell will outclass Froch and Ward will just about get through Kessler in a very good fight indeed.

 

Taylor, Dirrell, Kessler

 

I've got Abraham, Dirrell, Ward.

 

Heart
Froch
Kessler
Taylor

Head
Kessler
Froch
Taylor

It also depends on who has home court advantage too. I mean Froch has a huge disadvantage if he faces Kessler in Copanhagen which is likely as he faces Ward away in R1....

 

You prediction does not really make sense. Taylor is going to be up against a boxer with defense, accuracy, power and counter punching skills. Yes JT is the most skilled fighter AA has ever faced, but in reverse, AA is probably the hardest hitter Jt has faced(I do rate AA a harder one punch boxer then KP or Froch. Taylor other then Kessler has the best jab in the super 6 but against a guy like AA, that is not going to be enough. I recently watched Taylor vs Lacy, Taylor vs winky and Taylor vs Froch. I noticed one glaring weakness in JT and that is he keeps his right hand low. AA is definitely going to be counter punching with his left hook rather easily. The more I think about this fight the more I like AA's chances

 

Holy damn, that kind of tournament should take place in every boxing weight classes. Those six are easily the 6 best fighters in the world and we are going to find out who is the number one !

 

AA's left hook had better be a hell of a lot tighter than Froch's then, because everytime Froch looped his ugly left hook out there, HE'S the one who got countered. So much so that his trainer told him to stop throwing it. :yep

 

Ring blog on the tournament and the tournament format:


What’s not to like about Showtime’s Super Six Boxing Classic? Nothing. It’s a tournament. And fans of all sports love tournaments. That’s why boxing fans must give kudos to Showtime Sports GM Ken Hershman for his ambitious vision, as well as much-deserved props to the six super middleweight boxers (and their promoters and managers) for their willingness to risk their records and current standings in order to find out who’s the best in the 168-pound division.

The tournament, which starts off in a round-robin format beginning with Arthur Abraham vs. Jermain Taylor and Carl Froch vs. Andre Dirrell on Oct. 17, will play out through next year when it switches to a four-man, single-elimination semifinal round. The final, which will take place in 2011, will very likely crown an undisputed super middleweight champ.

However, as important as it is to have a universally recognized champion in a competitive division, what’s even better for the sport is the excitement the tournament has already sparked and will continue to generate for the next two years. I haven’t received this much equally divided interest from European and U.S. fight fans since Lennox Lewis fought Mike Tyson. Hardcore fans from the UK, Denmark, Germany and the good ole U.S. of A are literally giddy with anticipation of what might happen once the Super Six gets underway. And isn’t it the endless “What If?” scenarios that make tournaments so much fun?

I’ve already received a dozen dissertation-sized emails from the passionate fans of Abraham, Dirrell, Mikkel Kessler and the Danish titleholder’s first-round challenger, Andre Ward, all of whom are eager to explain in explicit detail how and why their favorites will win it all. These fans put forth valid arguments, which I agree with for the most part, and yet I won’t count out Froch or Taylor to shock not one but two or three of the tournament’s favorites. How crazy would it be if the guy perceived to be the least talented of the field (Froch) took on the fighter that most fans believe has seen better days (Taylor) in a final that is a rematch of the dramatic fight that may have been the precursor to the tournament?

Stranger things have occurred in boxing, and one never knows what’s going to happen in a tournament, which is why they are so popular among fans of every sport from every continent. Apart from the Super Bowl and the NBA Finals, does any sporting event in the U.S. come close to eliciting the mass hysteria created by “March Madness,” the NCAA’s single-elimination basketball tournament? On the international scene, does any sporting event compare to the worldwide attention garnered by soccer's World Cup? I don’t think so. Tournaments are good for their sports and they make for compelling TV.

Showtime’s tournament hasn’t even begun and that much is already crystal clear to the boxing industry. The beautiful thing is that it doesn’t have to begin and end with the super middleweight division. The Super Six can be can be emulated in other weight classes on many different levels by Showtime’s domestic rival HBO or even by basic cable networks that showcase boxing, such as ESPN and Versus.

HBO, which enjoys a much larger annual budget than Showtime, has the resources and influence within the industry to put on world-class tournaments that produce undisputed champions. The network has done it before in conjunction with Don King. It showcased a heavyweight tournament in the mid-1980s that resulted in the emergence of Mike Tyson (not to mention a thrilling and tumultuous title reign that created a new generation of fight fans). HBO and the spiky-haired promoter did it again (with the help of Madison Square Garden) in 2001 with the Middleweight World Championship Series that crowned Bernard Hopkins as the man at middleweight.

These kind of high-profile tournaments are a dream for hardcore fans and everyone involved, but there’s a reason they don’t happen very often. Apart from the excessive money and exhaustive negotiations that take place, these tournaments usually need the participation of a star to legitimize them to the casual fan and general sports media. The middleweight series could not have taken place without the participation of Felix Trinidad, who wasn’t yet a middleweight. The Puerto Rican icon was a unified 154-pound beltholder who was on most pound-for-pound lists and the only bona fide ticket seller among the four-man field that included Hopkins and his fellow 160-pound titleholders, William Joppy and Keith Holmes.
If King had tried to pitch the tournament to the executives of Madison Square Garden and HBO without “Tito” and tried to go with four middleweight beltholders -- Hopkins, Holmes, Joppy and whoever the heck held the WBO belt at the time -- forget about it, nobody would have given rat’s you know what.

That’s the dilemma HBO has if the network tries to imitate what Showtime has accomplished in the 168-pound division with other weight classes. The network could try do a ‘Super Six’ in the welterweight division but where would it find the star who stirs the drink? Imagine for a moment that the cable giant put together a six-man 147-pound tournament involving Shane Mosley, Miguel Cotto, Andre Berto and Luis Collazo before 140-pound champ Manny Pacquiao agreed to challenge Cotto for his welterweight title. Does anyone believe that Bob Arum and Freddie Roach would allow the Filipino hero to take part in the tournament? Does anyone think for a second that Floyd Mayweather would risk his beloved perfect record and elite reputation by bumping heads in such a formidable field? It says here the pound-for-pound Prima Donna fears looking bad against a spoiler like Collazo as much as he does losing to a badass like Mosley.

Elite fighters with Trinidad’s willingness to face the best don’t come around very often, which is why the Super Six Classic is so, well, “classic.” However, the beautiful thing about tournaments is that they don’t have to be for all the marbles or result in a world-beater to capture the imagination of the fans. A prime example is the first season of The Contender, which took place in 2004 and aired on NBC for 15 weeks in 2005. It’s debatable whether the 16-man tournament, which matched second- and third-tier middleweight prospects, and more than a few suspects, actually produced a bona fide contender. However, the prime-time series did solid ratings (excellent numbers for boxing) and helped the career of Sergio Mora, an unknown East L.A. fighter who had been shunned by every major promoter prior to taking part in the Mark Burnett production. Mora, who eventually won a 154-pound title, was recently signed by high-powered manager Cameron Dunkin and is considered a player at junior middleweight and middleweight. The series also introduced fringe contenders Peter Manfredo Jr., Alfonzo Gomez and Ishe Smith to a national audience. Manfredo, Jesse Brinkley, Joey Gilbert and Jimmy Lange all remain ticket-sellers in their areas of the country in part due to the popularity of the first season of the TV series. The Contender: Season One was an elaborate multi-million dollar production that put up a $1 million grand prize for the winner, but a tournament doesn’t have to involve millions of dollars to be popular.

British promoter Barry Hearn has done very well with Prizefighter, a less-complicated boxing tournament series aired by Sky Sports in the UK. The show’s format involves eight fighters who compete in four quarter-final three-round bouts. The finalists square off for a grand prize of 25,000 British Pounds. Prizefighter hasn’t produced any Top-10 contenders but it has introduced honest fighters who have resonated with the live and television audiences. The first Prizefighter, which began last April, took place in the heavyweight division and produced Martin Rogan, a 38-year-old taxi driver from Belfast who was transformed from an unknown part-time boxer to a working-class hero in Ireland and the UK. Rogan will never be confused for a heavyweight contender but his story and the guts he’s shown in the ring helped create fight fans.

One of the wonderful elements of any tournament are the underdogs, dark horses and unheralded teams or players who rise to the occasion and almost always become sentimental fan favorites. With that fact in mind, the U.S. cable networks that don’t subscribe to the ever-growing “boxing is dead” sentiment should add a tournament or two to their 2010 programming schedule without worrying about the inclusion of household names.

If the executives need a little help, I’m more than happy to provide some ideas. I believe world-class four- or six-man tournaments could take place in the highly competitive lightweight and junior welterweight divisions. All that’s needed is a little bit of start-up money, a commitment from the network to properly advertise the series and of course the cooperation of the various boxing promoters. I think 135-pound standouts such as Juan Diaz, Michael Katsidis, Edwin Valero, Anthony Peterson, the winner of Ali Funeka-Joan Guzman, and Antonio DeMarco would be willing to risk their current standings for the chance to be considered the top dog at lightweight.And I know that underground contenders such as Rolando Reyes, Paulus Moses, and Miguel Acosta would be more than willing to step in at a moment’s notice if any of the six participants I mentioned had to pull out for whatever reason.

The 140-pound division is blessed with young, hungry beltholders Timothy Bradley, Amir Khan and Devon Alexander who yearn to be recognized as the real champ. They realize that they have about as much chance of fighting Pacquiao as they do winning the lottery, so I think they would be willing to square off against each fellow junior welterweight players Juan Urango, Marcos Maidana and Kendall Holt to determine who’s the best at 140 pounds.