the 6 "best" smw's....

They had to throw in Ward and Dirrell just so US viewers would care. Typical.

 

I was plus'in the Bika Vs Froch suggestion, next time i'll underline it :good

 

Aint that the truth.

If they actually had the top 6 only Taylor would be in it from the USA.

 

edit

 

That was quite a while ago though. At that point, all Bika really had on his resume was an old win over Sam Soliman and a technical draw against Markus Beyer. After the Calzaghe fight, he's become much more of a known quantity. He gave Calzaghe one of the tougher fights of his career, he walked through the Contender tournament, he walked through Peter Manfredo. Granted, he was badly beaten by Lucian Bute, but Bute's the #2 SMW in the world, so it's not a huge black mark.

But Ward and Dirrell are two fighters that Showtime has made a significant investment in building up. The tournament doesn't happen without Showtime's money, so that's that. Despite weak resumes, they both have bigger names than Bika, at least stateside.

 

Im ok with Dirrel and Ward in the tourney and im happy to call the winner of the super six the real legit super middleweight champion.

 

I know. What a crock of ****. An American television network has the gall to want American fighters in the tournament they helped finance and put together. What "cheek"!

 

I'd have preferred to see Bika in there. He's a good solid fighter who could easily cause an upset. I think he's quite entertaining to watch as well. I like a dirty ******* of a fighter.

 

Dirrell is as close to a homegrown Showtime product as they have (his last 3 fights have been on said network) so I think he got in on that alone.

 

Bute is clearly top 3, and Andrade is clearly of higher calibre than Dirrell, but complications exist and the tournament is already covering amazing ground in terms of bridging the differences of opinions of promoters. All will pan out as it should and i am sure at some point if Bute continues to have success he will meet the top dog/s of the tourny.

 

I think that their are a number of fighters who are more deserving than Abraham, Ward, Dirrell, and Taylor, and that calling these guys "the best" is pure hyperbole. However, it's still an awesome tournament, and loaded with intrigue. This is do or die for Jermain Taylor, and I can't wait to see what happens. Ward and Dirrell now have the opportunity to shock the world. And, it will be great fun to watch Arthur Abraham figure out he should have continued to defend his middleweight title against hobos.

 

The point really isn't the most deserving...after Kessler, Froch, Ward and Abraham...the thing really just needed two guys to fill in and complete the set (the tournament is built around those 4). Dirrell and Taylor have some U.S. Value and Showtime HAS invested a lot into Dirrell...so why not?

It's clearly not the top 6 SMWs in the game but nothing is perfect.