Super Middleweight Tournament Officially Announced

[the_blueprint]

Will the belts be on the line in every match where the champion fights?

E.G When Froch fights will the WBC title be defended, meaning the titles could all change hands more than once?

dunno thats what i asked

[Pretty Boy1]

dunno thats what i asked

I read the first 6 pages and everyone was just picking who they thought would win the tournament so I skipped to the end to ask this. I would love it if the belts were on the line in each match because it would add to the excitement! This tournament will be awesome!!

[the_blueprint]

I read the first 6 pages and everyone was just picking who they thought would win the tournament so I skipped to the end to ask this. I would love it if the belts were on the line in each match because it would add to the excitement! This tournament will be awesome!!

indeed it shall

[Dan...]

Awesome stuff.

Will be rooting for Kessler.

[AndyShitHot]

(a) Andrade and Bika are far from C-D level - they are both top 10 fighters. Even Zuniga is far from being a bum.

(b) If Bute was offered a place in the tourney and turned it down, then Showtime will make that crystal clear on Monday. If they don't, then you'll know he wasn't offered a place in it.

(c) Bute would not have got into negotiations for a fight with Froch immediately after Froch beat Taylor (which he did) if he was trying to avoid fighting the top Super Middleweights. Those negotiations broke down over money, apparently, but he wouldn't even have wasted his time negotiating if he wasn't interested in the fight.



Because you can't call yourself the man in the division if you haven't beaten the #2, and there will be no Ring or lineal champion until the #1 and #2 fighters fight each other, and Bute is ranked #2. That makes excluding Bute a huge missed opportunity to have divisional clarity and a new lineal champion.

Andrade and Bika are good, not great wins, Zuniga looked like garbage in their fight. Bute is a good champion and I would have liked to see him in this tournament, all I stated was that I can see that it might have been his choice to not get involved cos A) He might have not seen how potentially massive this Tournament could become and B) He is a slightly protected, stay at home fighter (His last 11 fights have all been in the same arena ffs). And in this tournament no one is gonna be allowed to fight all their fights in their home town.

Even if he wasn't invited onto this Tournament then I have no complaints, at the end of the day Showtime want to cover their fan base hence why they have 3 US fighters and with 3 places left I know I would personally pick Froch, Kessler and Abraham all ahead of Bute.

[AndyShitHot]

dunno thats what i asked

I presume so, or at least they will be at the start, I presume it will be like a normal fight for the belts where the champ will need the governing body he holds the belt for to agree to the match and everything but should be ok unless after a while mandatorys come up etc. If they get their belts taken away though for being in this tournament then I can see the governing bodies getting a lot of **** for doing it cos their seriously is no good reason to, all these fights are meaningful fights + the WBC (Froch)/WBA (Kessler) will take their cuts. Although personally I think the WBC belt may be in this tournament till the end because Froch is champ and Dirrell, Ward and Taylor are all ranked highly in the WBC. The WBA strap might not make it into the tournament though unless Kessler fights Perdoma before the tournament starts.

[ONEH1TWONDER]

The best thing that happened for smw and boxing in years. Good thing Kessler has his promotor issues fixed now, can't wait for him to beat the living crap out of these guys, and shut up the critics once and for all.

[Mikhnienko]

Who the phuck is Balzsay to the US public? at least Kessler and Abraham fought on US TV.....Showtime not choosing him is excellent....Who the phuck is Balsay?

No, you see the point to the whole tournament is who is the best super middle so the question you should ask is WHO GIVES A PHUCK ABOUT U.S. PUBLIC. We're talking from a ideal standpoint. i realize that there is a need from showtime to have known fighters to the u.s. public but christ, i bet they'd get huge numbers from the u.s. fans if Layla Ali was thrown in there.

1) Boxing is bigger than the U.S. , more and more as time goes on.

2) If we're talking about top SMW's based on merit in a best case scenario, which is what i was doing, then Balszay Bute and Andrade are way more important to figuring out the SMW division than Ward Dirrell and Taylor.

[Kevin Jesus]

Wow, this is great. I called it a bluff because i thought it would never really happen.

This is real good news. I hope the other divisions copy this tournament thingy because then that will fully revive Boxing back to it's mainstream status.

[youngswish23]

thats good news. hbo should have did that to the ww instead of matching them up with featherweights. they really dropped the ball with that one. great job showtime and good luck to all the fighters there all special in their own way all of them 1 thru 8. its going to be like march madness with the matchups.