By Dan Rafael
ESPN.com
(Archive)
If you look through Showtime’s archive of fights, you’ll see that the cable network has televised some of the most significant bouts in super middleweight history.
Showtime was there for the Chris Eubank-Nigel Benn rematch, the tragic Benn-Gerald McClellan fight and many of Joe Calzaghe’s bouts, including his unification bout with Jeff Lacy.
More recently, the network aired Arthur Abraham’s much-anticipated rematch with Edison Miranda, several bouts involving rising contenders Andre Ward and Andre Dirrell, and Carl Froch’s dramatic title-retaining knockout of Jermain Taylor with 14 seconds left in the 12th round in April.
The 168-pound division is deep, and Showtime Sports senior vice president/general manager Ken Hershman found himself spending quite a bit of his resources in the division (Hershman is responsible for deciding what fights to buy).
But the fights he was doing, while usually notable matchups, weren’t leading anywhere specific. It was just one fight at a time with little long-range direction.
That all changed with the birth last week of Hershman’s brainchild: the Super Six World Boxing Classic. It’s a 12-fight tournament that will take about 18 months to complete and includes six top 168-pounders — Froch, Taylor, Ward, Dirrell, titleholder Mikkel Kessler and Abraham, who vacated his middleweight belt to join the party.
It is arguably the biggest boxing story of 2009.
“The way it sort of evolved is that I looked at strategically where I was going in the division,” Hershman said. “You start to think of the dream matchups and I thought Abraham is going to come up. You have Kessler, we’d been doing [fights with] the young guys, Ward and Dirrell, and we had done Froch-Taylor. I started to say, ‘Look, I can do this fight or that fight.’ Doing them a la carte gets very expensive. I thought this was the one division that could sustain a tournament with them all fighting each other, but the big question was: How do you get it done?”
That’s no easy task when you’re dealing with six fighters and five promoters from three different countries. The key was when Hershman realized it had to be a round-robin format.
“What dawned on us was that you couldn’t do it as single-elimination because then it becomes all about the draw and you’ll have battles over every fight and where the fight is. It becomes impossible,” Hershman said.
He said the round-robin structure through the preliminary rounds and the fact that each fighter gets to fight in his home territory soothed the promoters, managers and boxers, who all knew they would be guaranteed three fights.
Four of the fighters will get a fourth fight by advancing to the semis, and two will get five high-profile fights on Showtime. They’re all for good money. It was a deal that enticed everyone to sign on.
Ed Mulholland-US PRESSWIRE
The gang’s (almost) all here: Carl Froch, Mikkel Kessler, Arthur Abraham, Andre Dirrell and Jermain Taylor plan to find out who’s the man at 168 pounds.
“By going that way, it made the draw much less contentious,” Hershman said. “It took that problem off the table and everyone was comfortable. If you are Ward or Dirrell, you’re getting the opportunity to fight these top guys who are far more experienced. Are you that damaged if you don’t make it? If you are Jermain, where are you getting three guaranteed fights like these, win, lose or draw? And for Froch, Abraham and Kessler? They want the American exposure and the opportunity to fight top competition. They’ll get it.”
The first nine fights will be in the round-robin format, with the top four advancing to the semifinals on a points system (two points for a win, a bonus point for a knockout and one point for a draw).
The tournament opens Oct. 17 with Froch (25-0, 20 KOs) defending his belt against Dirrell (18-0, 13 KOs) in Froch’s native England, while Taylor (28-3-1, 17 KOs) travels to Germany to face Abraham (30-0, 24 KOs). The next fight is Nov. 21 when Denmark’s Kessler (41-1, 31 KOs) heads to the United States to defend against Andre Ward (19-0, 12 KOs), probably in Ward’s hometown of Oakland, Calif.
The rest of the preliminary round bouts — Abraham-Dirrell, Froch-Kessler, Ward-Taylor, Ward-Dirrell, Froch-Abraham and Kessler-Taylor — will be fought throughout 2010, with the semifinals scheduled for early 2011 and the final for May or June 2011.
Hershman came up with the idea and mentioned it to Kalle Sauerland of Sauerland Event, the German company that promotes Abraham and recently signed Kessler. When it became more serious, Hershman went to Germany in mid-May to secretly meet with Sauerland and company general manager Chris Meyer.
“We spent 10 hours in a conference room at a hotel going over structure after structure of a tournament,” he said. “We weren’t negotiating a deal. We were toying with a deal, but we were really trying to come up with the format. I came back and met with some of the U.S. guys I have relationships with and we honed it some more. From mid-May until it was announced, it’s been 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
The result was a kickoff news conference last week in New York followed by a press tour to Copenhagen and Berlin that took it from concept to reality for Hershman.
“I have been involved with some of the most major and historic events in the sport, including the legendary Corrales-Castillo fight, which in my opinion is the best fight in history, the Tyson-Holyfield ear-biting incident and the Tyson-Lewis fight,” Hershman said. “But never have I been more proud than I am of this tournament or prouder of the work we have done. Getting five promoters together is a herculean task in itself — plus six of the best fighters in the division. That is a staggering accomplishment.”
Meyer said the face-to-face meeting was critical.
“I think the benefit from this brainstorming came from the fact that we had never really dealt directly with each other, so that we could speak freely,” Meyer said. “We talked through so many scenarios and possibilities that apparently Ken clearly shaped up the picture in his mind where the Super Six has now landed. This idea was apparently so convincing that all the other promoters picked this up, agreed to participate and helped get this idea developed into a fantastic tournament.”
Hershman is no novice in fight negotiating. He understands there will inevitably be problems during the tournament, be it injury, weight issues or any number of other obstacles. That’s why the contracts are detailed and cover a variety of scenarios. If somebody does fall out, Hershman is prepared.
“There’s always somebody who he will be left behind and over 18 months we will need a substitute,” he said. “It’s inevitable. It speaks to the depth of the division that there are fighters we could still have in the tournament.”
He said titleholder Lucian Bute of Canada and American Allan Green, neither of whom was invited to participate, are on the top of his list if there is an opening. They weren’t invited, Hershman said, because “as an eight-man tournament it just became too drawn out, too expensive and added another layer of fights. We needed to stay with six people in order to get this done.”
While he has sewn up the tournament, Hershman wants to assure fight fans that he’ll still be buying other top fights.
“This tournament is a significant investment, but it’s going to be great,” he said. “And I still have money to program the rest of the fights on ‘Showtime Championship Boxing’ and continue with our ShoBox brand.”
The fighters are enthusiastic.
“This is what boxing is supposed to be about, with the best fighting the best,” Froch said. “It forces the best fighters in the division to all face each other.”
Said Kessler: “[It's] fantastic. Boxing needs something like that and it will be a huge success.”
And Abraham: “This spectacular tournament will answer the one question everybody has been asking — who is the best fighter in this division?”
“It’s good for boxing and the fans,” said Taylor.
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