Abraham, Froch, Taylor, Kessler in a Showtime Shocker!

By Rick Reeno

A few weeks back, I reported that Showtime was very interested in putting together a super middleweight tournament with the biggest names at the weight. Over the last few days, BoxingScene.com has spoken with numbers high-level sources who are close to the situation and it appears that Showtime is going to move forward with the super middleweight tournament.

The negotiations for this tournament have been very secretive and some of the information I was able to dig up will make Ken Hershman [Senior Vice President and General Manager, Sports & Event Programming at Showtime] wonder if I tapped his phone line.

From what I was able to find out, Showtime plans to enter into multi-fight agreements with undefeated IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham, WBA super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler, former undisputed middleweight champion Jermain Taylor, undefeated contender Andre Ward, undefeated contender Andre Dirrell and undefeated WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch.

This will NOT be an elimination style tournament.

Once all of the contracts have been signed and every fighter is officially on board, Showtime plans to match them in a round robin tournament with some form of a point system.

If everything goes as expected, the following fights are being discussed for this tournament.

Arthur Abraham vs. Jermain Taylor in October in Germany
Carl Froch vs. Andre Dirrell in October in the UK.
Mikkel Kessler vs. Andre Ward in November.
Arthur Abraham vs. Andre Dirrell in America in January 2010
Mikkel Kessler vs. Carl Froch in Europe in March 2010
Andre Ward vs. Jermain Taylor in America in April/May 2010
Andre Dirrell vs. Andre Ward in America in September 2010
Arthur Abraham vs. Carl Froch in November 2010, with Mikkel Kessler vs. Jermain Taylor taking place around the same time.

After those bouts takes place and the points are tallied up, there will be semi-finals and a final tournament bout.

As far as Kessler’s legal dispute with Mogens Palle, I’ve heard that some form of an agreement was reached with Palle to allow Kessler to participate. I’ve been told that Palle will not be part of the promotion, but if everything comes together as expected - Dan Goossen, Gary Shaw, Lou DiBella, Sauerland Event and Mick Hennessey will be involved.

Some other points of interest.

1. Abraham would vacate his title and move up to 168.
2. Kelly Pavlik would be left without any significant opponents at 160 or 168. The only options I would see for him is the winner of Lucian Bute vs. Librado Andrade or Paul Williams.
3. You would have to applaud the promoters involved if everything is able to get worked out. The tournament would be a global event with some of the biggest names in America, Germany, UK and Denmark.



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Too good to be true? I hope not. ray: This would be some epic shit right here.

 

Sounds 2gtbt to me. Would be great though.

 

Supermiddleweights, are bitterly garbage.

 

Props to the fighters if this is true. Looks like there is going to be some good fights.

 

Sounds too good to be true.....because if they could pull it off, it could be awesome....and not only that, but encourage this kind of thing more often.

 

Looking at the expected scheduling (and banking on no setbacks on those dates might be optomistic in this sport) I tend to think a round robin sounds better at the start, because none of the fighters have lost, and haven't lost badly, yet.

It might have to take something of a change in mindset for boxing fans to really accept a main event fight if they're both coming off of losses...but then, maybe that's a change that should've already happened in this era of the sport.

 

Cool idea, but Bute should be involved.

 

So who wins?

Abraham by KO.
Dirrell by decision.
Kessler by KO.
Abraham by KO.
Kessler by decision.
Ward by decision.
Dirrell by KO.
Abraham by decision.
Kessler by decision.

I don´t know this seems like a set-up for Abraham and Kessler or/and huge breakout for the Andre´s. Taylor is planned as the sacrificial lamb. Froch clearly got the worst schedule.

 

Arthur Abraham vs. Jermain Taylor in October in Germany
Carl Froch vs. Andre Dirrell in October in the UK.
Mikkel Kessler vs. Andre Ward in November.
Arthur Abraham vs. Andre Dirrell in America in January 2010
Mikkel Kessler vs. Carl Froch in Europe in March 2010
Andre Ward vs. Jermain Taylor in America in April/May 2010
Andre Dirrell vs. Andre Ward in America in September 2010
Arthur Abraham vs. Carl Froch in November 2010,
Mikkel Kessler vs. Jermain Taylor taking place around the same time.
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One of the many calls I received came from Bute's matchmaker, Don Majeski, who was very angry over some of the inaccurate information going around. According to Majeski, there was never an offer presented by Showtime and Bute would have been happy to be part of the tournament.

"That is a lie [referring to Bute's refusal to enter the tournament]. How is Jermain Taylor, who lost three of his last four fights, a part of this tournament and not Bute? What credentials do Andre Ward and Andre Dirrell have over Bute? They invited two other undefeated champions to be part of the tournament but not Bute or Jean Pascal [who Majeski also works with]. Bute has been on Showtime and he's a North American fighter," Majeski said.

"Bute will fulfill his mandatory [against Librado Andrade] and take on any and all of these fighters in the tournment and the same goes for Jean Pascal."

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Some have wondered how Showtime could afford such a tournament on their own. It appears the tournament is not a one-network operation. According to overseas pundits Jorg Lubrich and Dietmar Kreft, several television networks are involved - including ARD (Germany), SKY Sports (UK), Viasat (Denmark) and Showtime (America) taking the lead role on the project. The entire tournament project will cost around $50,000,000 million dollars after everything is said and done. An entire plan has mapped out to cover the costs by the television networks involved.

It’s being said that the actual tournament idea was created by Kalle Sauerland, son of Sauerland Event owner Wilfried Sauerland. The elder Sauerland brought the idea to Showtime executives and worked out the presentation and sold all of the involved parties [promoters Gary Shaw, Lou DiBella, Mick Henessey, Dan Goossen] on the concept.

If everything is finalized, a tentative press conference date is already scheduled for July 13 at New York's Madison Square Garden. All of the fighters involved are going to be present for this press conference. There will be a press conference tour with the fighters, and tour stops will include London, Copenhagen and Berlin.

One of the first fights of the tournament, Arthur Abraham vs. Jermain Taylor on October 10, will likely take place at Anschutz Group’s O2 World in Berlin, which seats 14,000.

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Anyone else starting to get their hopes up, just a little bit? Generally speaking, in Boxing when something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Hopefully this isn't one of those cases.

 

Let´s put it this way. If we get Taylor/Abraham, Ward/Kessler and Froch/Dirrell and the whole thing falls apart afterwards, we still won. If somebody would have said Ward´s next fight is against Kessler, people would have asked what are you smoking.

I heard the budget is around 50 millon dollars.

 

surely it doesn't make much sense. if a fighter got ko'd in the first round in his first fight who'd care about seeing him in the next two fights? boxing's too different to other sports. there's too much time between fights, people get old or exposed suddenly, new fighters appear out of nowhere. any plan for several fights in advance usually comes unstuck (tito v rjj in 2002?), and this takes that onto a further scale, planning the next three fights of six boxers.

 

Kick-off press conference on Monday. Great great stuff. Let´s hope this will be a huge financial success for all parties involved and all fighters honour their commitments. :bears:

And it looks like the WBA/WBC belts will be in play, since Kessler will make a quick mandatory defense against that scrub Perdomo to shake off his ring rust.
Froch will make his mandatory defense against Dirrell in the first tournament bout. If both Kessler and Froch are successful their bout could also be a unification bout. :mj:

 

Hell fucking yes. It looks like everything is a go. Here's Dan Rafael's article on the tourney...

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http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=4317510

Super middleweight tournament planned

Showtime's six-man super middleweight round-robin tournament is on.

Without giving out specific details, the network issued a media alert Thursday afternoon inviting media to a "ground-breaking boxing announcement" on Monday afternoon at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Showtime announced six fighters would be present: 168-pound titleholders Carl Froch (25-0, 20 KOs) of England and Mikkel Kessler (41-1, 31 KOs) of Denmark; middleweight titlist Arthur Abraham (30-0, 24 KOs) of Germany, who is moving up in weight; former undisputed middleweight champion Jermain Taylor (28-3-1, 17 KOs) of Little Rock, Ark., and rising American super middleweight contenders and 2004 Olympic medal winners Andre Ward (19-0, 12 KOs) of Oakland, Calif., and Andre Dirrell (18-0, 13 KOs) of Flint, Mich.

Also scheduled to be in attendance are Showtime boxing chief Ken Hershman, who carried the load in putting the ambitious project together, and the promoters of each fighter: Wilfried and Kalle Sauerland (Abraham and Kessler), Mick Hennessy (Froch), Lou DiBella (Taylor), Gary Shaw (Dirrell) and Dan Goossen (Ward).

"The six fighters, who have a staggering combined record of 161-4-1 with 117 knockouts, their respective promoters, and Hershman will all be on hand for this historic press conference," the press release said.

The final, critical piece of the puzzle was solved earlier Thursday when Sauerland Event signed Kessler, who had been in a dispute with former promoter Mogens Palle, to a promotional contract.

Although Showtime has been tight with details, ESPN.com obtained a copy of the master contract, which outlines the particulars.

The tournament, which will consist of nine preliminary bouts followed by the semifinals and final, begins Oct. 10 and is supposed to finish in May or June of 2011.

Win or lose, the six fighters will each fight at least three times with the top four advancing to the semifinals based on their point totals. Fighters get two points for a win, an additional point if it's by knockout and one point for a draw. There are all sorts of contingencies for situations such as a no contest or a tie in points. Contractually, mandatory bouts cannot interfere with a tournament fight.

The tournament is scheduled to begin with a split-site doubleheader on Oct. 10. In England, Froch will face Dirrell and in Germany, Abraham will face Taylor.

On Nov. 7, probably in Oakland, Kessler will defend against Ward. Other matches include Abraham against Dirrell in January in the U.S.; Froch against Kessler in March in Europe; Ward against Taylor in spring 2010 in the U.S.; Ward facing his Olympic teammate in summer 2010 in the U.S.; Froch against Abraham in summer 2010 in Europe; and Kessler against Taylor in the U.S. in fall 2010.

The semifinals would take place in January 2011 with the final to be held in the U.S. in May or June.

Tournaments of this caliber are rare in boxing. The last one that comes close was in 2001, when promoter Don King put together the World Middleweight Championship Series with HBO. It was far less complicated because it involved only three fights and four fighters -- Bernard Hopkins, Felix Trinidad, William Joppy and Keith Holmes -- all of whom were promoted by King. Also, all three fights took place at Madison Square Garden over the course of six months.

In that tournament, Hopkins beat Holmes to unify 160-pound belts, Trinidad moved up from junior middleweight to knock out Joppy to take his belt, and Hopkins knocked out Trinidad the final in an upset to become the undisputed champion.

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artie:

 

If this happens, and I still think it's a big if, this is fucking SUPERB

MTF :bears:

 

Sounds too good to be true.

I'll just say if the majority of these fights take place, I'll be satisfied.

 

On the face of it it sounds great but some reservations spring to mind. Firstly, unlikely to happen. secondly, even if it did the league format + a KO tournament means just too many fights. It's basically making the division a closed shop for fighters out with the tournament for the two years odd it'll take to play out.

But over all it'd certainly be a positive thing.

 

Great idea. 50 million can't be the number. They are overpaying if it is.

 

Too bad HBO didn't think of it first; then Pavlik could've been involved. And too bad the most exciting Super Middleweight to watch isn't involved: Librado Andrade. I'm glad Bute is out in the cold - the guy's a stinker.

It will be interesting to see what Pavlik's management does in order to position him such that he remains relevant.

With all of these guys fighting eachother it would be pretty easy to forget all about Pavlik.

 

Abraham looks like a smurf next to Kessler and Froch.

 

How do you fancy Smurf's chances against those two?

 

Okay against Froch, very bad against Kesler...

 

Good against Froch, not as good as I did before I saw the true size difference between them. I think Kessler will dominate the whole tournament including Abraham. And the next day Calzaghe will demand that boxrec adds the names of Froch, Abraham, Dirrell, Ward and Taylor to his ledger. It would be hilarious if Froch won the whole tournament and became a greater fighter than Calzaghe in the process. ::

 

As you know I've never been particularly high on Frock, but I think he would beat Abraham. Unless Smurf is somehow much better at 168, which remains to be seen, but is unlikely.

And it seems fairly obvious that Kessler beats them all, but you never know.

 

DAMN!!!...REED Didn't Realize Abraham was THAT Little!!!...



REED:hammert:

 

First promo looks great.Apparently the first fights will be on Oct. 17th.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1716410550?bctid=29113611001

 

I would think that the guys who got 'shut out' of the tournament are going to be able to step in as replacements.

Even if they cannot, there will be fights out there for everyone else...eliminators, interim titles, stripped titles.

Whoever emerges from this tournament will have a couple of very worthy challengers out there. Maybe more.

 

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"Put your glove on Arthur's head Jermain"

"Arthur aint feelin that shit"

::

 

I think we have different definitions of "exciting".

Regardless, Andrade has unfinished business with Bute that's supposed to happen next, so I don't mind that it happens outside the format...but it does highlight a problem with the tournament, which is that if they stick precisely to it (barring injuries, postponements, replacements), then it can be seen as rigid, excluding some match-ups (involving fighters in the tournament or out of it) for others.

I applaud the effort of trying to come up with something new, I'm just not sure a round robin is the answer.

But, boxing isn't perfect and I guess it's better to have a system where this many top fighters in one weight are planning to fight each other than carry on with business as usual, in which few top fighters fight each other, and having tune-ups and showcases.

 

Uggghhh...I gues Andre Ward didn't get the invite to the photo shoot? ...........

 

It´s better to have Bute and Balzsay outside the tournament, so some fighters like Andrade, Green or new talent have some options over the next few years to make a name for themselves and become world champions. If Bute beats Andrade, Green or the Balzsay/Stieglitz winner he can make himself the automatic "no.1 challenger".