Kessler’s Departure Offers Outsiders A Lifeline, The Search For Mr.X and Ratings Gripes
By: Andrew Harrison
Category: abner mares, albert sosnowski, allan green, andre dirrell, andre ward, archie moore, arthur abraham, carl froch, craig mcewan, henry armstrong, ike ibeabuchi, joseph agbeko, mikkel kessler, roberto duran, super six world boxing classic, vic darchinyan, yonnhy perez
It’s difficult not to feel it for Messrs. Hershman and the folks over at Showtime after Mikkel Kessler’s sudden and unfortunate departure from their creative Super Six tournament. The half dozen competitors vying for a semi final berth have (once again) rather abruptly become five and will likely, if sense prevails, morph into four. Dumping late entrant Allan Green out of the mixer completely in order to salvage the competition may now be a necessary evil, yet in doing so, the move would more or less make the points scoring malarkey of previous rounds well, pretty much redundant in all honesty.
Initial reverberations indicate that the scheduled third round draw which matches the Andres (Ward and Dirrell), along with European punchers Carl Froch and Arthur Abraham together may now transmogrify into semi final matches, with the victors coming together next year to establish a tournament winner. The main benefactors from such an enforced rehash are the two guys who faced possible elimination, Froch and Dirrell.
Froch’s progress to date consists of a close points win over Dirrell and a more solid points defeat to Kessler. On both occasions home town advantage was held culpable by the losing party. Dirrell’s work in the tournament is even sketchier. After showing good skill but very little will against Froch, the talented man-child boxed well early before running like a thief late against Abraham in a bout that he finished unconscious, the victim of a sucker punch. His task of making the semis looked the tallest of tall orders a few weeks back, not so now of course.
Out of the frying pan they leap, perhaps now just a single win away from a showpiece event, possibly against each other in a replay of their tepid first round encounter. Showtime would also be fairly happy with such an arrangement you feel with U.S interest guaranteed in the finale thanks to the all American and all Euro penultimate round. Gary Shaw can once again dust off his star spangled megaphone, content in the knowledge that for one more night at least, jingoism is alive and punching.
The doom mongers will no doubt round upon the concept as it sags against the ropes, decrying it as an obviously flawed idea, one always destined to flounder. As satisfying as that must feel for the glass half empty brigade, I can’t agree. The Super Six concept was brave, exciting and interesting, a passing thought which may yet change the way in which top level fighters operate.
Regardless which way the tournament lurches from this point, it has been a success to my mind. Ward and Dirrell, talented prospects unknown outside of boxing’s inner circle are now viewed as potential stars after wins over tournament favourites Kessler and Abraham respectively. Carl Froch has finally clarified who he is as a fighter whilst Abraham and Kessler, despite proving fallible, have boosted their popularity in any case, so well did they project themselves via the accompanying fly on the wall promotional programme.
Perhaps most encouraging is what happens once the smoke has cleared next summer. The victor can look ahead to making money with the cream of three divisions, whilst the runners up can continue to feed off one another, much in the same way Contender contestants managed to on the back of their fifteen minutes of notoriety a few years back. Everyone’s a winner.
Especially those who backed Andre Ward before this whole thing began.
Talking of wagers, Saturday sees the return of Sky’s boxing programme and I may have a nice little betting tip for those amongst you who are keen on such things. In the grandest tradition of twiddly tasched bounders though, I’m going to secure the odds myself before alerting the bookmakers to what dunderheads they’ve been.
I will be glad to have something to write about next weekend, it’s been mightily frustrating trying to catch a link in order to view big fight action from across the pond. The fact that my usual source has posted up the James Toney-Randy Couture debacle rather than the fight of the year candidate between Ivan Calderon and Giovanni Segura from Saturday evening leaves me more than a little peeved this morning.
On a brighter note, there are rumours of a wonderful card in November which pits potential star Abner Mares against Vic Darchinyan whilst Yonnhy Perez does battle with Joseph Agbeko with the winners presumably meeting down the line. Once again Showtime have thrown their weight behind this all bantamweight mini-tourney and should be applauded for their efforts. As for a form line, Perez has already beaten Agbeko, who in turn has beaten Darchinyan whilst Perez and Mares fought to a draw last time out. Looking at that, I’d be tempted to hang my hat on Mares.
I’m loving RingTV.com’s A-Z feature, which nominates the best fighter of all time by surname, although it’s slightly strange seeing Ike Ibeabuchi on the podium alongside men such as Archie Moore, Henry Armstrong and Roberto Duran. I’ll be intrigued to see who they dredge up for the letter X.
Whilst I’m patting them on the back for that though, I’m poking them in the eye for their ratings. There are still dudes listed without pictures and their records are skew-whiff in some cases. Rendall Munroe’s ledger for instance hasn’t been updated since September 2008 whilst Matthew Macklin’s has been out of date since December and John Murray’s since May.
Whilst we’re moaning about ratings, why in the name of Winston Churchill do Boxing Monthly and Boxing News have the Pole, Albert Sosnowski in their British heavyweight ratings whilst omitting Scot, Craig McEwan from their middleweight rankings? Answers on an e-postcard with that head scratcher.
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