Was the super6 involving Froch, Ward etc a success financially or a disappointment to promoters & fighters? I only ask because i would love to see it more regularly at other weights, it'd keep fighters busy, pay them & hopefully have some great fights ,especially if the final was an eliminator, plenty of fighters would benefit from it?
Well, it was a failure in terms of creating a single champion at the weight. Dunno about the financial success or failure, very complicated business when it comes to how the events were paid for, how revenue was generated and split etc.
Like pretty much everything worth doing in boxing it would require promoters to work together to some degree so maybe a non starter, seems such a good idea in my head that certain fighters would find another level with something to aim for rather than going stale fighting dross twice a year to pay the bills hoping to strike it lucky with 1 "big" fight, if it was a disaster money-wise then that answers my question why it wasn't built on, imagine a British lightweight supersix for instance?, i don't think there's any way that WOULDN'T make money given some of the names/history, seems ready made to me.
It was rather complex with injuries etc- no one made heaps of cash. I think something like the Maxinutrition Knockout tournament has worked well at domestic level but anything that involves more than one fight in boxing is a bit of a risk.
The final unified the WBC and WBA and crowned a new lineal/Ring champion. The losing finalist then beat the IBF champion and a losing semi-finalist beat the WBO champ.
It was very refreshing, but too complicated to really work to be repeated, due to home town, injuries, and other complications. As a fan I'm satisfied with the fights it yielded overall considering the pullouts. I too would be interested in the splits, finances etc.
It created a linear, legitimate, universally recognised world super-middleweight champion and clearly showed who the best were - simple.
To be fair to the Super six it only had two belt holders involved (Steiglits WBO and Bute IBF never took part) and we still had a unification fight in the final, so it did create a no. 1 in the division which is more important than the belts IMO. The Super Six had it's critics, but it created stars, resurrected careers and even ended some fighters, but it did exactly what it said it was going to do by giving us great fights and a Unified champion at the end of it. OK it did have a lot of pull-outs and went on a bit too long, but it was a last man standing type of thing were only the best lasted till the end. I would like to see the new super-middleweights coming through take part in one.
So you're saying you would've preferred it didn't happen? Maybe they should've added in the WBU, IBO and WBA interim titles too. What other tournament has done as much for boxing and was as bold as the Super 6? I guess there are critics that hold back progress in all walks of life.
I think the format of the current domestic LHW tournament is much easier to follow. 8 fighters - 3 bouts - 1 winner Would like this in most divisions - domestic and at world level
All weights have multiple "champions" but anyone really following knows who the real number 1 is, except maybe light heavy & we'll get the answer to that soon enough
