Super Six Middleweight Tournament Leaves Unfinished Business
By Daniel “Tex” Cohen
Business is never finished in Boxing.
There’s always an upstart, old foe, grizzly veteran, stylistic complication, or personal vendetta left on the table when a fighter retires. Lennox Lewis never had a second fight with Vitali Klitschko. Marco Antonio Barrera will probably never get another shot at Amir Khan. Jesse Feliciano and Alfonso Gomez will probably never have a fourth, tiebreaker fight.
If Floyd Mayweather, JR., beats Shane Mosley and Manny Pacquiao beats Joshua Clottey, both men will still have to face one another to close the books. Even then, there will still be the prospect of a fight with Paul Williams, or Sergio Martinez, or whoever else is the flavor of the month.
The Super Middleweight Division, teamed up with Showtime, is doing everything it can to finish business within the Super Middleweight Division. By tabbing six of the best fighters in the division for a round robin, points-based tournament, the Super Middleweight Super Six Tournament is looking to close the books (at least temporarily) on the question of who “es mas macho” in the division.
So far, we have seen that Andre Ward has a grip of dominance over Mikkel Kessler, and Arthur Abraham, as well as the rest of the top fighters in the division, have the ability to knock out a highly competitive yet overmatched Jermain Taylor.
In spite of the ambitious goal of the tournament, the above results were the only solidified evidence of… anything at all. Andre Dirrell and Carl Froch fought to an ugly and debatable decision (in favor of Froch). The tournament is also missing the only other truly dominant super middleweight prospect to have performed with any gusto in recent fights: Lucian Bute.
Aside from those obvious issues, we have yet to see what we will get from Allan Green in his tournament debut in place of Taylor.
As if that weren’t enough reason to maintain the openness of the division, even after the tournament reaches its eventual, inevitable end, there are plenty of fighters not usually considered in the super middleweight mix that could instantly enter the fray with a few changes of fortune.
Kelly Pavlik and Sergio Martinez will scrap April 17th. Given the proximity of that fight to the next round of the tournament, either of those guys could instantly decide to angle for the winner of the tournament by challenging leftovers. Martinez, who fought Paul Williams at middleweight and will face Pavlik at the same weight, could decide to try his hand at the divisions above him. At 35, the Argentinean will want paydays.
Those paydays could come from somewhere higher up.
As for Pavlik, the Hope of Youngstown may be interested in moving up. Bernard Hopkins may have dissuaded him from considering the light heavyweight ranks for the time being, but there’s no reason he couldn’t try his hand at 168, just a few pounds above where “The Ghost” met Taylor in their catch weight rematch.
The aforementioned Williams, who went toe to toe with Martinez last year, might be interested in the Super Middleweight Division as he grows into his incredibly lanky body. Williams has looked uncomfortable in the lower weight divisions for some time, and he is still young enough that he has room to grow in terms of pure mass.
On the fringe of the division is the exciting and formerly frightening Edison Miranda. “La Pantera” is Bute’s next challenger. In spite of Miranda’s one-sided loss to Pavlik and his place at the short end of a unanimous decision to tournament standout Andre Ward, Miranda still owns a victory over Green. Some might question that win because of certain specific reasons surrounding the fight (including the fact that Green was coming off of a recent colon removal surgery). Yet, Miranda still owns the victory and therefore is one up on Green, the new tournament entry.
None of these options have even considered the prospect of somebody moving down, or finding a catch weight to meet one of these super middleweights.
Chad Dawson and Jean Pascal offer highly lucrative fights. Dawson, as the man in the division above, would be a favorite and a breadwinner no matter who he faces. As for Pascal, he recently put on a great show against Adrian Diaconu (for the second time in three fights), and has a loss to the strong-willed and under-skilled Carl Froch. A rematch between the two would help close another open book.
As for Diaconu, he’s a great fighter that can still use his wits and ability to create difficult matchups for some of the better fighters in the world. Diaconu owns a win over Chris Henry, who recently knocked Shaun George down and out. In fact, Henry or Diaconu would both be worthy challengers for any of the men in this article.
Obviously, men who are on the smaller side of the Super Middleweight Division will not be able to fight men on the larger side. However, the beauty of the tournament is that all of the challengers are average super middleweights. That way, the winner can go in almost any direction.
Whether or not that’s good for the guy that comes out on top remains to be seen. The winner of the tournament, be it Green, Froch, Kessler, Dirrell, Ward or Abraham, will command plenty of dollars.
Conversely, you might consider the price to be on that man’s head.