By Jake Donovan
The finish line for the Showtime Super Six World Boxing Classic is now within reach.
Former middleweight titlist Arthur Abraham will meet Andre Ward in the Super Six finals, overcoming an early deficit to get past Carl Froch in their scheduled 12-round bout on Saturday evening at Chapiteau de l'Espace Fontvieille in Monaco.
Despite their being no title on the line, the bout was fought at a championship level that lived up to – and perhaps exceeded – pre-fight predictions of a Fight of the Year contender. Abraham overcame injuries suffered during the bout to rally back, while Froch himself braved a back injury to proceed with the bout as scheduled.
The fight was savagely beautiful and in fact the antithesis of last weekend’s Super Six entry, in which Olympic teammates and longtime friends Andre Ward and Andre Dirrell begrudgingly agreed to go through with their schedule bout.
Nevertheless, everything remained on course despite the many setbacks suffered in the tournament, with Ward and Abraham now set to meet sometime in the first quarter of 2011.
The winner will also have a fight lined up midway through next year, assuming that Mikkel Kessler is fully recovered from the very eye injury that forced the Dane to bow out of the tournament prior to his scheduled Stage Three match with Allan Green.
All was not lost for Green, despite losing out on a chance to further participate with the network brass opting to advance the tournament straight to the semifinal round rather than bring in yet another substitute for no other reason than to keep Stage Three alive.
Showtime promised Green a handsome payday in a prominent televised slot, and lived up to their word as always. The Oklahoma native will face former hardened veteran Glen Johnson in a super middleweight bout that will serve as the televised opener to the highly anticipated November 6 clash between Juan Manuel Lopez and Rafael Marquez.
The way things turned out wasn’t exactly what Showtime had in mind when they first revealed plans for the round robin tournament last July. Their efforts were praised throughout by the media and fans alike, even if such accolades were also met with a hint of skepticism that they were being a bit too ambitious.
Despite everyone’s worst fears being realized, the Showtime brass found a way to make the best out of a potentially disastrous situation. They acted quickly when faded former middleweight champion Jermain Taylor elected to drop out of the tournament and take a break from the sport as a whole, first scheduling a play-in bout between Green and Sakio Bika before ultimately allowing Green to replace Taylor once Bika turned down the fight.
They also intervened anytime a fighter tried to negotiate something better for himself than the contracted terms to which he already agreed. Froch had been outspoken before and after each of his fights, claiming to pull out if his demands weren’t met and also shooting back at those who didn’t agree with the decision in his Stage One bout with Dirrell.
In the end, Froch still showed up for every press conference and more importantly for every fight, regardless of how pleased or displeased he was with the terms.
While it was emotional for Ward and Dirrell – longtime friends who both earned medals in the 2004 Summer Olympics – to have to meet each other in the ring, the fact of the matter was that they knew it was coming from the moment plans were laid out last year. They ultimately put their personal feelings aside for one another, and performed in the ring like professionals, even if they didn’t quite measure up to the entertainment value provided by their peers.
Best of all, rather than dragging out the tournament to midway through next year (and perhaps even later, should more postponements and drama ensue), things have now accelerated. While fighters, managers and promoters are often chastised for putting their own best interests in front of what is ultimately best for the sport, their efforts to truly work together to keep things moving along should be commended.
Such actions allowed the sport to avoid a stretch of inactivity, as further delays would have left a gaping hole in the fall schedule, leaving stateside boxing fans with next to nothing to look forward to from mid-September through the first week of November.
While there is no question that November and December are absolutely jam-packed with compelling matchups, continuity is always the best way to maintain interest in the sport.
Those involved in the Super Six seemed to get this, just as they understood the benefits of agreeing to a series of tough fights against one another, with nary a tune-up or interruption in between.
While the winner of the tournament will still perhaps have to go through Lucian Bute to claim full bragging rights at super middleweight, he still boasts as strong an argument as any for the right to be called the best.
For the past 18 months, nobody in the tournament had punching bags like Librado Andrade and Edison Miranda to beat on, or a Jesse Brinkley against whom to stay busy while watching others take one tough fight after another.
Instead, they kept their mouths shut, and did their talking in the ring, as scheduled and as promised.
They were understanding and compliant when hits to the tournament required an immediate rewrite, though understandably asking for – and receiving – due compensation in exchange for such modifications.
After all, it’s still a business.
Showtime knows this as much as anybody. It’s why they have repeatedly bent over backwards through the years to make their clients happy. Whether it’s a one-time deal (in line with their “Great Fights, No Rights” policy) or with repeat customers who have appreciated their dealings with America’s #1 Fight Network, the same level of hospitality and professionalism is extended to one and all.
For that reason, you can best believe that neither the winner of the tournament or any of its participants will feel the need to bolt to another network at the first sight of a blank check being waved in the air.
Be it Ward, Dirrell, Abraham or Froch, all were given worlds of exposure thanks to Showtime’s efforts as well as digging deep into their own pockets to keep everyone happy, attention that to date has never been paid to any of them by any other stateside network.
Their promoters and advisors recognized as such, with loyalty extended , resulting in the tournament inching that much closer towards closure, and the sport that much better off for their collective efforts.
Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of Boxingscene.com and an award-winning member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Contact Jake at JakeNDaBox@gmail.com