The 2009-2011 Super Six Classic EASILY remains the best boxing tournament of recent times

And dropped for a reason!

 

Without question. Multiple HOF'ers and multiple fringe HOF'ers in a 6-man turned 8-man field. The Super Six was incredible. In boxing, yes boxing, they pulled off a tournament that featured two fighters facing off in their fifth fight of the tourney for the finals. The substitutions sucked for sure but Ward, Froch, and Abraham all stuck it out until the end and those were 3 of the big 4 with Kessler at least fighting Ward and his classic with Froch before exiting.

As far as their substitutions, I remember some excitement for Allan Green stepping in. Looking back, that was foolish and people stress that but at the time it wasn't a bad sub by any means. Even Carl Froch said when the news was announced that he "bet Andre Ward isn't happy" since Ward was set to face Taylor and thus Green. And Glen Johnson was a random cool OG to pull out from nowhere to fight at his age and having to move down in weight. And in Glen style he KO'd Green nicely to give some level of, "OK, he isn't exactly 'semi-final' material but it could be worse and he's worthy to battle Froch." Even making Ward face Bika with his "bye" after 2-0'ing and the field losing another man was acceptably done.

One argument you could make against it is that there were a fair bit of 118-110 or wider fights in it. But I would reply with telling you to watch more boxing and you shouldn't be stunned. It did give us the Froch/Kessler fight, the Dirrell/Abraham drama, and the Abraham/Taylor finish.

Sure it was drawn out but that was the point. It was thrilling and provided a fairly epic satisfying result.