SUPER 6 TOURNAMENT DISCUSSION THREAD

There are other threads about this tournament such as the prediction one, but this one is strictly for discussing the fights, the fighters, and any relative news. Also the thread can be bumped up again on Nov 21 if it falls to a different page.

 

Taylor - This fight really reinforced my belief that Taylor never improved as a fighter from day one of turning pro. He looks exactly the same and never added one new skill to his repertoire. It's the main reason he lost the fight. He was unable to counter, and unable to slip punches that he should have been able to. All JT ever has been is an offensive fighter with bad footwork. His confidence was gone to the point that all he did was jab the whole fight.

Abraham - So much for the "Abraham doesn't really have good power" theory by a couple few posters. Anyway, I thought Abraham was a bit too patient but did give a good presentation of himself. His power is good and his chin is strong and I wish he was fighting Froch next.


Dirrell - Where to begin? Talented but horrible fighter. And I thought Roy Jones was too safety conscious. I think Dirrell would have deserved the decision if he hadn't started clinching so much. It wasn't even the clinching really but just the way he did it. It was usually excessive, ineffective, and unnecessary. I also didn't like all the running he did. At times he was embarrasing himself. A young Roy Jones would have never been that safe with Froch and would have stopped him with excessive punches.


Froch - Like most of the Euro's in the tournament will be one of the top dogs thanks to his durability and home town decisions. However I think his lack of skills against either Abraham or Kessler will be his undoing since they're equally as durable as him but better skilled.


Hometown Refs & Decisions - Will they take the luster off of the tournament? I knew Dirrell lost as soon as they called his 114-113 split. It was just like the 1 split Taylor was given on the cards for the Abraham fight. You can always tell a hometown decision with a split. The losers score is always close and the other 2 scores are always lopsided and too large for what actually went down. Also where were the usual refs that we know? Why couldn't they get some of those guys in here? What's the point of having this thing if whoever's not at home has to get a KO to win?

 

I think Taylor should drop out of the tourney and they should get in the winner of andrade - bute. IMO both have better chances and will make up for better fights.

 

Yeah I thought that aswell Lib Four Lib,.. will the American homegrounds retaliate with bad decisions if the oppurtunity presents itself?..

 

Yup Taylor was just brought in because he is well known in the U.S. The winner of andrade - bute is cblearly the better qualified participant.

 

It SOUNDS Good & Behooves Taylor's Longterm HEALTH, but it'd B a Nightmare Logistically...

Taylor's ALREADY Penciled in CONTRACTUALLY for 2 More Fights @ Least...The ENTIRE Tournament would LITERALLY have to B Reworked...Currently, Everybody Scheduled to Face Taylor is LICKING their Chops...He HAS to B a High Profile "Stay Busy" Fight for the Other Guys in the Tournament...

ADDING The Bute-Andrade Winner would B Great for FANS, but it Doesn't Seem Realistic when Considering All that would have to B Done to Pull it Off....



REED:hammert:

 

If Taylor stays in this tourney (which is not a given) does anyone think he'll manage 1 win?

Who is he scheduled to fight in the 2nd and 3rd fights?

The only person he stands a chance against is Dirrell. He'll almost certainly retire after this tournament, surely.

 

Wrong. Dirrell would fuck Taylor up. I said that before Sat.

Taylor has Ward next, then Kessler.:doh:

Ward will outbox him pretty easily. And I said Taylor-Kessler would be a replay of Drago-Creed and someone laughed, but it might not be far from the truth.

Taylor should retire. His health is worth more than the tourney, and money.

 

Andre Ward is his Next Scheduled Opponent...Can't Recall who the 3rd Opponent is....agREED w/your Last Sentence...Instead of a "Cash-Out" Fight, this is a "Cash-Out TOURNAMENT for Taylor...



REED::

 

I hear some people are giving Ward a big shot in this tournament. I don't know much about him but his chin looks too pointy and sharp to me. I suspect chinnyism. What's the word on it?

 

This is a good summary. When I heard the commentators mention that the ring in one of last night's fights was 20x20, followed by the statement that ALL the rings for the tourney would be exactly the same, I actually started to feel like this was being done RIGHT. To the average boxing fan, it is a matter of simple common sense that all of the possible variables in these fights should be constant to make the whole deal as fair as it can be. But in boxing... common sense is rarely used at any level.

So why not have 2 sets of 3 judges, maybe with 2 alternates if one of them gets hit by a bus mid-tourney, and those judges are the only ones used? As long as they represented an international and neutral cross-section, then the fights would be judged in a very similar, fair fashion. You would know basically what to expect from them, what they may like or dislike. Obviously none of the judges should originate from in (or near) any of the fighters hometowns.

The way it is going now, I can already see potential favoritism to "make up for" what appears to be hometown judging in previous fights.

As for the fights from last night, I think the American fighters are being trained well, with good skill and apparently decent rigor in their routines. They seem competent and very well conditioned. But the philosophies they are being taught are completely backward and need desperately to be re-tooled.

When you are significantly faster than your opponent, and in probably slightly better condition (younger, too), and you can start fast where he may start slow..... TAKE ADVANTAGE. Start fast, sit down on those punches, and try to knock your man the fuck out. You don't have to be crazy or wild, you just need to be committed to your punches and willing to take a small amount of risk. Hell, you get more points for a KO. In this tourney a win is NOT a win. There is strong motivation to angle for a knockout if at all possible.

These young guys (and JT as well) need to stop giving so much damn respect to their opponents. They are in the tournament and they belong in the tournament, stop acting like you're just "happy to be here". JT may not be salvageable. I don't know for sure. But Dirrell just plain blew his first fight. He could have won, and maybe won big. But because of the strategy that was apparently given to him by his team, he lost and probably lost some fans in the process.

Ward needs to learn from this, but he won't. He will be waaayyy too careful and as a result he will get beat by Kessler who will simply be methodical and committed to breaking Ward down. Fighters like Froch and even Abraham to some extent get by because their opponents don't throw them off their game by coming in strong and hurting them (or at least soundly discouraging them) early on. Everyone shows way too much respect, the fight goes on according to their plan, and eventually they will get to you with a power punch.

Look at what Taylor did to Froch. If not for his traditional late fight collapse, he'd have won. Are you telling me Dirrell is incapable of catching and hurting Froch? He just never gave himself the chance, running around, holding and always desperately trying to keep safe, safe, safe, gotta keep safe. Fighters like Ward and Dirrell bring an angle to the tournament that the other fighters don't, and they help to make it much more interesting and hard to predict. If they end up right out of the box in a deep hole, it will definitely take some of the luster off the tournament for me.

Let's see how Ward does and if Dirrell or Taylor bounces back strong. If these guys spend the rest of their ring time running around hoping to maybe get lucky and squeak out a 7-5 potshot decision against their opponents, they are just completely missing the point of this sort of event.

 

What do people think about having the two champions (Froch and Kessler) meet before the semis?.....i thought they'd keep them apart...but it means that there will be one fighter going into the semis with both the belts that are at stake in the tournament.

 

Excellent summary lb 4 lb.

I agree that JT should think about hangin' it up. What's that, 4 L's in his last 5 fights, three by way of KO---(this most recent one KTFO). He has no "Plan-B" and can't counter or fight inside--two things you need to do to have any hope to beat Abraham. One more KO loss for him that would be 4 KO losses in his last 6 fights? I know they needed his name to sell the tournament here but his future health is on the line.

I agree that they need to bring in some stronger refs. The guys last night seemed hesitant and inconsistent. I suppose the idea was to avoid refs from the country of either participant for fear of favoritism but the ones they got just aren't strong enough. I say just bring in the best you can get or else one or two of these fights will get away.

 

Until I watched the fights last night I thought this tournament was a single elimination per fight.

I don't like having the losers keep going on this tournament. It's fucking stupid and pointless.

I say have the winners advance and whoever wins the whole thing won't have a loss from the first round.

I will still follow the tournament but having the losers still advance it's a fucking downer.

 

The losers aren't advancing they just have less of a chance than the winneres to advance to the semi finals bracket. It's kind of like the world cup based on a points system

 

my point is they should be eliminated when they lose. Like the Middleweight tournament in 2001

Why the hell would anyone wanna still watch Taylor in the tournament after last Saturday night?

 

Thanks G and you too Outlander. What was really funny about the ref in the Froch-Dirrell fight was how weak he was. He completely didn't take control of things and let Froch get away with murder while penelizing Dirrell for a minor offense without even giving a warning. Plus the shock on his face whenever Dirrell went into a clinch you'd have thought he never saw one before. I mean seriously was this a ref from MMA or what?

Because you get to see everyone matched up against everyone. It might not be as intriguing in this weight class, but if the same concept were put into a tournament in the welter division it'd be awesome. As it is it's kind of like the talent and speed of the US brothers versus the durability and strength of the Euros.

If the tournament was just elimination then you wouldn't get to see Dirrell fight again. I know that doesn't sound like a bad thing at first but the thought of seeing him get plastered by a Kessler or Abraham has me salivating.

 

Dirrell isn't fucking anyone up.

Did you see the fight on Saturday? He's as big a bitch as Junior Witter.

I would find it hard to pick Taylor against any of the other 5 now, but Dirrell isn't fucking anyone up, even Taylor.

 

Indeed. I've never really liked Taylor, but I've never disliked him either, and you can't help but feel sorry for him.

He probably won't even get 1 win in this tournament. I also feel sorry for him in that there are aspects of him that are good, but he is just such a moron, and as lots of other people have said, he's never really evolved since being an amateur.

However, you can't feel too sorry for him, seeing as he must have made a good few million ::

Oh and like someone else said, I too thought this was an elimination tournament, which is what most tournaments are really, otherwise it's more like a league.

But unlike the other person, I have no problem with the points based tournament with the losers staying in.

We get to see more fights, how can you whine about that? What's not to like exactly?

 

It's attitudes like these that have fighters like PBF fighting only competition he knows he can beat. Watching Taylor fight twice will be better than watching Dirrell fight again. In fact, it's attitudes like yours that have conspired to create pussy fighters like Andre Dirrell who don't fight to win, but rather, not to lose.

People bitch and moan all of the time about boxing. Myself included. But the reality is, majority rules. And when it comes to boxing fans, the majority is apparently a bunch of simpleton, spoon-fed, TV zombie idiots who can't process information beyond a fighter's won/loss record to determine his worth.

We're looking in the mirror folks. With exceptions (the minority), the boxing industry is giving us exactly what we want. Super heros we think are invincible, and "scrubs" who we can say are shit because they lost three fights. It's the WWEing of boxing and it's fucking sad.

Say all the shit you want about promoters hijacking our sport, or Cable stations, but the fact is, the sport belongs to us. And too many of us are a bunch of fucking idiots.

 

I think key to getting all the fighters/promoters to agree to this tournament was the opportunity to bounce back from defeat.

 

Taylor got KTFO by Froch as well, so he should be eliminated from the tournament more for his safety but also for competitive standards.

 

Well Taylor almost stopped Froch and was probably winning the fight against Froch going into the last round. The Abraham fight probably would have been fairly close on the cards as well. Taylor is competitive with everyone, whether or not he can last 12 is another story.

 

:: Even though you may have turned your head to address a wider audience midway through your post, Latinking was still getting thoroughly, thoroughly owned.

 

Hilarious sidenote. The person, who had to sit behind Valuev got a free ticket. ::

 

Serious?

 

Yes.

 

Dirrell would beat the shit outta Taylor. JT cant fight southpaws for shit! Jermain BARELY beat Cory Spinks years ago. Dirrell is a bigger, faster, more powerful version of Spinks. Dirrell's straight left would put Taylor on his back.

 

great post

 

It may be Double L's best post eva'!!!


I gotta say, I love this shit. I don't care if Taylor stays on or not. I like the fact it's not a single elimination tournament.

That means all these guys will continue fighting some of the best guys in the division, even if they lose. There will be no "stay busy" or "mandatory bouts" against guys who don't belong in the Top 50. No fights to build up records............no fights simply for the purpose of hyping up a future fight.

Taylor still won't be a walkover for anybody IMO. He'll challenge whoever he fights for several rounds at least, if he didn't just get completely ruined by Abraham.

Andrade and/or Bute will get their chance eventually. In the meantime they have a financially viable fight against each other already.........which just goes to show how great this division is right now.

I hated watching Dirrell vs. Froch............but I absolutely loooooooooooove this tournament. I think it could save boxing from obscurity if this could happen in all the divisions. It would create more mainstream superstars throughout the sport and give people a reason to follow it on a consistent basis.

Won't ever happen..............but I can dream, can't I?