Comments Thread For: World Boxing Super Series To Tackle Smaller Weights in 2018

[PsychoPat]

Imagine a middleweight tournament with eubank jr moving back down to 160.

Against golovkin, jacobs, canelo, bill joe saunders, jermall charlo, andrade, quillen and a 160 version of lara now I would pay to see that.

[kej718]

Well yeah and that is what 175 needs the WBSS for. Otherwise, history has shown Stevenson will keep ducking Kovalev, and Al Haymon may keep Beterbiev from fighting anyone good either. The fights you mentioned on the schedule, none of those are great fights. Badou Jack is overrated. Made his name off winning 8 rounds against James Degale at 168, who as we just saw also struggled just as much with someone coming up from 160 (Truax). For Jack to be a natural 175 and not beat Degale any worse than Truax, who was dominated by Jacobs at 160(!!!), tells you Jack is overrated. That is only a challenge for Stevenson if Stevenson is way past his prime.

Gvozdyk-Alvarez... nice fight compared to what they have gotten so far, just because neither of them have ever gotten even B-level opponents before so it's a nice change, but Alvarez is a B-level guy. If Gvozdyk is actually any good, this is also a mismatch.

Kovalev-Mikhalkin is a **** fight.

Bivol-Barrera is a very exciting matchup simply because Bivol is exciting and it represents his chance to emerge on the world class level if he can beat Barrera better than Ward did. Otherwise, Barrera is also overrated. Got dominated by another overrated fighter in. Looked great against Joe Smith but only because he had a lucky impact on a punch that broke Smith's jaw. That type of stuff is very flukey. Not powerful enough to KO a guy, but you break his jaw... that's just a lucky impact. If not for that, I think Smith would have beaten him. If Bivol beats Barrera, I hope he and Smith rematch.

So none of these matchups are what fans wanted. The matchups fans want are to see members of the Big Five fight each other, meaning Kovalev, Beterbiev, Stevenson, Bivol, and Gvozdyk. And maybe some new guys will emerge (Yarde?) which would also qualify. But no, Badou Jack, Sullivan Barrera, Eleider Alvarez, and Mikhalkin are not the stuff that great top level fights are made out of. These are clear B-sides, B+ level guys are best, mostly B-level or below. The WBSS is, sadly, apparently, the only way to actually get the top guys to fight each other, so that's why I wanted to see it at 175.

You talk about Al Haymon as if he is the one preventing fights from happening. He is responsible for a lot of the best fights this year, and many going forward.
Badou Jack - James DeGale
Leo Santa Cruz - Carl Frampton
Gennady Golovkin - Daniel Jacobs*
Errol Spence - Kell Brook
Mikey Garcia - Adrien Broner
Floyd Mayweather - Conor McGregor
Jermell Charlo - Erickson Lubin
Jarrett Hurd - Austin Trout

Next year we already have
Errol Spence Jr - Lamont Peterson
Mikey Garcia - Sergey Lipinets
Deontay Wilder - Luis Ortiz

Charlo and Hurd might also happen too.


Main Event can't even get Barrera to face Kovalev, and you think Haymon is the problem?
Ward overrated?

If Gvozdyk wins his next fight then Stevenson has to face him next.

We don't need a tournament, we just need the promoters and networks to get out of the way. You think Main Events is going to put their fighters in tough fights with no options on future fights? That is not the way the business works and why Barrera keeps turning down fights.

Both sides can make the biggest fights possible for now and it will lead to the bigger fight in the future. Kovalev was Stevenson mandatory for a a while and that fight could have been made but they did not show up to a purse bid twice.

A tournament can't really work here if a fighter is signed to a network and not allowed to fight any where else.

[otrocubiche]

Welterweight would be good, some good fights to be made there.

[JRB123]

Both sides can make the biggest fights possible for now and it will lead to the bigger fight in the future. Kovalev was Stevenson mandatory for a a while and that fight could have been made but they did not show up to a purse bid twice.

A tournament can't really work here if a fighter is signed to a network and not allowed to fight any where else.

This is on record and people still say that Stevenson ducked Kovalev. SMH