The Way I See It 07.08.09: Super Middleweights

Posted by Joe Roche on 07.08.2009

Can Showtime possibly pull off a a round robing Super Middleweight tournament? If they can, who would you favor? It's Wednesday once again and it's time to know how 411mania's Joe Roche sees the boxing landscape.



Super Middleweight Madness

Showtime is often looked at as a second class citizen in the world of televised boxing. HBO has the sexy logo, and the relationship with Golden Boy Promotions (for whatever that's worth right now) so they are often seen as the premier boxing cable outlet. This weekend Showtime has the television pick of the week as far as this commentator is concerned with the highly anticipated Vic Darchinyan – Joseph Agbeko bout scheduled for Saturday night. The "Raging Bull" vs. "King Kong" fight may just be the scratch at the surface if you are to believe the news from this past week as it appears Showtime is close to finalizing a Super Middleweight Tournament that will bring together some of the top talent in the world to find a clear cut #1 Super Middleweight.

In a story that has been developing over the past week or so BoxingScene.com has claimed that the tournament, a blockbuster to be sure, will allegedly involve IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (30-0, 24 KO's), WBA super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler (41-1, 31 KO's), former undisputed middleweight champion Jemain Taylor (28-3-1, 17 KO's), undefeated contenders Andre Ward (19-0, 12 KO's), and Andre Dirrell (18-0, 13 KO's), and WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (25-0, 20 KO's).

The proposed tournament is being put together by a conglomerate of international television stations with the yeoman's work being done by Showtime, but also including ARD (Germany), SKY Sports (UK), and Viasat (Denmark). The entire tournament will supposedly cost an estimated $50,000,000 to pull off and may be finalized as soon as July 13th with a press conference to be held at Madison Square Garden. The structure of the round robin tournament was proposed by Kalle Sauerland, son of Sauerland Event promoter Wilfried Sauerland who sold the idea to the rest of the parties involved, including Gary Shaw, Lou DiBella, Mick Hennessey, and Dan Goossen.

The main hold up right now appears to be a contract dispute between Mikkel Kessler and his promoters, the Danish promotion company Mogens Palle. Apparently Sauerland Event, has been attempting to broker a deal with Palle to take over the promotion of Kessler but until that is finalized his participation in the tournament (if there ever will be a tournament) remains up in the air. The questionable status of Kessler may be good news for IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (or Librado Andrade if he wins their rematch) who appears to be the odd man out of the tournament structure.

The finite details of the tournament right now remain sketchy, with more information surely to come next week. However, it appears that the tournament will be round robin style, NOT elimination, with three (3) points awarded for a KO victory, two (2) points for a decision victory, and no points for a loss. At the end of the initial round robin point totals are tallied up there will be semi finals, and finals.

Assuming Kessler is able to participate in the tournament, a cursory glance at the proposed schedule may look something like this:

Arthur Abraham v. Jermain Taylor – October, 2009 in Germany
Carl Froch v. Andre Dirrell – October 2009, in the UK
Mikkel Kessler v. Andre Ward – in November 2009
Arthur Abraham v. Andre Dirrell – in America in January 2010
Mikkel Kessler v. Carl Froch – in Europe in March 2010
Andre Ward v. Jermain Taylor – in America April/May 2010
Andre Dirrell v. Andre Ward – in America September 2010
Arthur Abraham v. Carl Froch – November 2010
Mikkel Kessler v. Jermain Taylor – November/December 2010

Obviously the notable points in this tournament system are that Arthur Abraham would vacate his title to move up to 168 pounds, and that Kelly Pavlik would be left with almost no opponents for the next two years at 160 or 168, outside of a potential bout with Lucian Bute, and/or Paul Williams.

The Way I See It: My initial reaction to this story when it first began to circulate was – bullshit. If there has been one constant throughout my years of being a boxing fan, it has been that promoters do not agree on major deals like this one. Now I'm supposed to believe that no less then five different promoters, and five different cable television networks from around the world were all able to sit in a room together and agree on the specifics for a massive super middleweight tournament to take place over the next two plus years?

However, as time started to pass and this story wouldn't die I became a believer. Perhaps it was possible for Showtime to pull everyone together and deliver a Kill Bill style five fingers of death shot across the bow of HBO to stake their claim as not just a little brother in televised boxing. Make no mistake about it; this tournament would be a MASSIVE coupe for Showtime. HBO got a lot of publicity for their agreement with Golden Boy Promotions to set aside certain dates for Golden Boy Promotion events, and they've been rewarded with a mixed bag, with half the year left on the agreement and no chance of getting out of it. If Showtime was able to undercut HBO and put this together for the next two plus years you're looking at a major power play to organize some of the best talent from across the globe in the super middleweight division.

Take a second and look at that potential lineup – with Mikkel Kessler penciled in you're looking at a tournament featuring records of a combined 161-4-1, 117 KO's, and that's not a misprint. Even if you took Kessler out of the tournament and replaced him with Lucian Bute, you'd still have an overall record of 144-3-1, 105 KO's – not too shabby.

The real question for the purpose of this article is how would I see a tournament of this magnitude playing out?

I think the first thing you'd have to notice is that Andre Ward and Andre Dirrell would be taking HUGE steps forward in their respective careers by taking part in this tournament. Ward took a nice step forward with his most recent victory over Edison Miranda, but to jump from Miranda into the ring with Kessler is a large leap forward. Similarly speaking Dirrell would be taking an even bigger chance by entering this tournament as "The Matrix" is coming off a victory over Derrick Findley who manages to make a 13-3 record look pedestrian at best. For Dirrell to take his next bout against Carl Froch you'd have to think that he'd be jumping from the frying pan into the inferno, and I wouldn't like his chances – although I'd love to see how he fared against some stiff competition.

I think we'd also have to put a question mark next to Jermain Taylor's entry in the tournament. I love "Bad Intentions" and I don't think I'm wrong in saying he would have beaten Carl Froch in an 11 round fight, unfortunately for Taylor it was a 12 round bout and he came up just short. Taylor's last four fights include back to back losses to Kelly Pavlik, a victory over Jeff Lacy and the loss to Froch. At 30 years old Taylor isn't over the hill, but I still wouldn't like his chances coming out of the round robin format of this tournament.

Kessler is a wild card as I tend to support anyone who carries the moniker "Viking Warrior" into the ring, but it's tough to overlook the fact that he has fought almost exclusively in Denmark throughout his career. I'm not saying that there aren't some great Danish fighters, and I don't mean to insinuate that nobody who travels to Denmark is worth the cost of a flight to see – but I am saying that his 41 wins may be a bit misleading. Kessler's only loss came at the hands of Joe Calzaghe in a fight that has the distinction of being the lowest rated prime time HBO World Championship Boxing event ever. I'm hopeful that Sauerland Event is able to come to terms with Kessler's current promoter because I would really like seeing his involvement in this tournament.

If Kessler is not involved we'll more then likely get to see Lucian Bute, a man who has fought his last eleven (11) fights at the Bell Centre in Montreal. Bute was on Showtime in a fight against Librado Andrade that he completely dominated from start to finish, which is why I don't give Andrade much of a chance of being involved in this tournament if Kessler has to pull out. Bute brings something to this tournament in the knowledge that promoters know he is a draw at least in Montreal, which would at least give Showtime comfort that they could put on a few fights in America in front of a large crowd. Dirrell and Ward are unproven commodities so outside of Jermain Taylor there is a lot of European flavor with this tournament, not much draw stateside.

Heading into the tournament though I'd have the final two names ranked at #1 and #2 in the eventual winner's category. Carl "The Cobra" Froch falls into the same trap as the other entrants to the tournament in that his resume leaves a lot to be desired. He ran out the clock against Jermain Taylor who ran out of gas two minutes early, and he beat Jean Pascal who just put on one of my favorite fights of the year. Froch is the type of fighter that will be interesting to watch across the span of this tournament as he probably has the pedigree to win the entire thing, and will be a difficult match for everyone involved, especially when he is fighting in the UK. I would love to see Froch – Taylor II which is a fight that should happen anyway, and as Froch recently said he would "decapitate" Kessler, that seems like a fight that might have interest.

The final name on the list is The King. I am unnaturally high on Arthur Abraham who has dismantled everyone that was put in front of him at 160. The list of names that have fallen to King Arthur may not set the casual fan world on fire, but he's done what has needed to be done against Mahir Oral, Raul Marquez, Edison Miranda (twice), Khoren Gevor, and Shannon Taylor to name a few. Not exactly world beaters, but compared to the resume of the rest of this tournament, give me The King and you can take the field.

At the end of the day this tournament provides a prime opportunity for boxing fans in the United States and around the World to enjoy some top notch fights that they may otherwise ignore but will be drawn to with the added appeal of the tournament format. I love the idea of throwing this tournament together because it will bring people to the table, it will make fights interesting, and it should be a huge opportunity for Showtime to prove that they are not a second tier boxing channel.

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The Way I See The News

- It appears that Shane Mosley is no longer pursuing Manny Pacquiao like Manny is the homecoming queen and Sugar is the President of the Chess Club. It's understandable that Mosley would want to fight Pacquiao, it's a big money fight, but Shane's legacy is in tact, and his endless chasing of Pac-Man was starting to become sad. It appears now that Mosley is looking into possible fights with WBC champion Andre Berto, Kermit Cintron, Paul Williams and Joshua Clottey. A possible Mosley – Williams fight would be interesting in a – nobody wants to fight us, fight – type of way.

- Freddy Roach is dropping hints that Ricky Hatton may be looking to fight Amir Khan in the near future. I'm not terribly convinced this is a great idea for Hatton who stands to gain nothing with a win over Khan, but could seriously damage his reputation with a loss in a fight with Khan.

- Word is that the Juan Manuel Marquez team is having a hard time finding sparring partners that can emulate Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s style for their upcoming September 19th bout. Apparently they're going to fly in some South American fighters to try and do the job. I'm surprised that it's that difficult to find loud mouthed, boisterous, inflated ego's to stand in the ring with Marquez.

- Other news out of the Marquez team is that Juan Manuel's younger brother Rafael Marquez is looking to match up with Israel Vazquez, but the Vazquez team is delaying fight. This one is a no-brainer to me, because it's the only money fight for either guy out there, I'd expect this one to be made official before too long.

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The Way I See The Week Ahead

Tomasz Adamek (37-1, 25 KO) vs. Bobby Gunn (21-3-1, 18 KO) – Newark, NJ, IBF cruiserweight title fight

- Any other time, this would be the choice fight of the week. I actually think Gunn is an interesting match up for Adamek, but interesting won't be enough to overcome "Goral." Gunn very rarely goes deep into fights, and by that I mean he hasn't gone deeper then the seventh round and that was August 16, 2006. I'd predict Adamek scores a KO victory in the sixth round.

Cristobal Cruz (38-11-1, 23 KO) vs Jorge Solis (37-1-2, 27 KO) – Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chipas, Mexico, IBF featherweight title fight

- This should be a solid fight but I'm not sure Cruz has much for Solis in the end. The only loss on Solis' record is Manny Pacquiao and Cristobal Cruz is no Manny Pacquiao.

Felix Sturm (31-2-1, 13 KO) vs. Khoran Gevor (29-3-0, 15 KO) – Nuremburg, Germany, WBA world middleweight title fight

- I have never been that high on Felix Sturm, and while I'm also not that huge on Gevor I think that the competition that Khoran has faced recently has prepared him for this fight better then Sturm. The only loss that Gevor has since 2002 is Arthur Abraham in an 11th round KO. Of all the fights this weekend I'm going to pick Gevor with the upset.

Pick of the Week

Joseph Agbeko (26-1, 22 KO) vs. Vic Darchinyan (32-1-1, 26 KO) – Sunrise, FL, IBF bantamweight title fight

- This has been a war of words, and I think it'll be one of those rare fights that actually lives up to the hype. Darchinyan deserves a lot of credit because we live in a day and age where fighters are hesitant to take on the best competition, and he does not fall into that category. "King Kong" has the ability to beat Darchinyan, but you can count me amongst those who absolutely love "Raging Bull" and I'm pretty confident that he's going to pull off this fight to become a three division world champion.