The Super Six Soap Opera
By Gina L. Caliboso
“Like Sands of the Hourglass, so are the Days of Our Lives.”
As the resident female writer of RSR, I’ll admit my stage when I would watch my daily soap opera. Love lost and love found. Somebody gets hurt. Drama is the stuff that makes life a little less boring and you know what? Someone always has more.
As we are now entering into the 4th month of the 2010 fight year, boxing has drama these days. I absolutely lost it during the Floyd Mayweather – Manny Pacquiao superfight negotiations. It was daily drama on that one. But really, as the fight year continues to extend its shaky footing in terms of fight matchups, the Super Six tournament seems to be generating some soap opera drama on its own. It’s now a daily thing for me now, to peruse the boxing headlines of my favorite websites – RSR being the FIRST I check, but now with the rescheduling of Andre Ward versus Allan Green, it leaves me to wonder that the Super Six tournament has lost its edge to a degree.
The Americans have fallen by the wayside and it’s now become a European Cup matchup.
Let’s start from the beginning. The first round of the tournament was awesome (that’s my SoCal accent working). Stage One had Jermain “Bad Intentions” Taylor, 28-4, 17 KO’s, against Arthur “King Arthur” Abraham, 31-0, 25 KO’s.
As a fan of Jermain Taylor in his career, although it’s been by the wayside in losses these days, I saw his presence in the tournament as a chance to revamp his career. As for Abraham, I had never heard of him. But the Taylor-Abraham fight showed a solid fighting and talented Abraham and he finished off the bout with a KO to Taylor leaving no doubt to why he is currently #1 in the tournament and among super middleweight fighters.
Then, the fight venue moved over into the United Kingdom for the fight between Andre “Matrix” Dirrell, 18-1, 13 KO’s and Carl “Cobra” Froch, 26-0, 20 KO’s. I didn’t see much in Dirrell in this fight and Froch articulately spoke like a barrister and with further research found out that he is a fierce critic of countryman Joe Calzaghe. This is the stuff matchups are made. I again wasn’t too impressed with Dirrell’s fighting ability, but seeing as how Froch has not really fought outside of the UK; it doesn’t surprise me he came away with the win.
Dirrell didn’t exactly win the fight, but I didn’t think Froch showed a whole lot of dominating fighting either.
Let’s fly into Oakland, California, North America. Okay, so it has become an international battle of sorts – Europeans 2, Americans 0. The venue now switches to Oakland for the fight between Danish champion Mikkel “Viking Warrior” Kessler, 42-2, 32 KO’s and Oakland’s Andre “S.O.G” Ward, 21-0, 13 KO’s. Kessler fights a very technical fight against Ward in his backyard, but suffers some of the worst cuts I’d seen in a while. (Writer’s Note: I have quite a crush on Kessler. I didn’t need to see him cut and bleeding.) Back to the business at hand, Ward wins by TD over Kessler. Ward takes the WBA Super World Super Middleweight title away from Kessler.
Now this is the stuff of bar and beer talk. Pay attention.
Jermain Taylor pulls out of the tournament. American and Tulsa, Oklahoma native, Allan “Ghost Dog” Green, 29-1, 20 KO’s takes Taylor’s place. On March 6th, Dirrell was supposed to fight Abraham here in California at the Agua Caliente Resort and Casino, but Dirrell suffers an injury and can’t fight. A rematch is set up for March 27th in Detroit, MI. That’s this weekend. Fellow Writer Brian Wilbur asked for our predictions. First read the rest of my article then head over to Brian’s article.
You caught up now? One other detail. On April 24th, Green was supposed to go up against Andre Ward – cheers for an American matchup. Hold the cheers people, Ward had to pull out due to an injury. But luckily, we have Froch versus Kessler to look forward to on the same day. Green and Ward are now set to fight one another on June 19th. At least that’s where it stands now. According to my Facebook fan pages, Froch and Kessler are getting in their workouts.
So, all looks good for the European side of things.
For the American side of things, I think they are carrying the bulk of the drama right now – all of it unintentional. It was a pleasant surprise to see Ward beat Kessler in his relatively young career. Even though the fight didn’t go all 12 rounds, Ward showed he has what it takes to challenge his opponent and he took away the title from a world class champion as Kessler.
Taylor’s withdrawal took me by surprise, but the KO he suffered against Abraham even rocked me. Dirrell and Ward’s injuries for the second stage are definitely ill-timed because boxing fans may be losing interest in the entire tournament. I want to see Green fight. Basically, let’s get this tournament going. The boxing ring is the only place I want to see drama!
So, like sand through an hourglass, stay tuned for the daily installment as the Super 6 Middleweight tournament unravels.
If it’s anything like the last few months, we’re in for more drama, more blood, titles lost, titles gained – and I suppose that’s why this writer keeps tuning in.