Showtime Supermiddleweight Tournament

[canucklehead]

NIIICE.

good fucking plan. wonder if it will happen, whether it will be PPV. if not, western canada really needs showtime.

[gunranger2]

I bet Taylor was the first one to sign up

[FreshPrince]

Pretty good news. Boxingscene publishes any rumor out there, but Dan Rafael waits till he talks to good sources, and he says this tournament is very much in the process of trying to get made.

Showtime super middleweight tourney in works - ESPN

[heavyarms21]

Wow that's crazy , I know that the plan will run into some roadblocks, but hopefully those obstacles can be overcome, I would love to see it happen.

[Phanekim]

crazy...

[BobbyBrez]

Nearly impossible this occurs. While it makes my cock tingle a bit, the logistics of pulling this offer given the current economic climate are a significant longshot at best. I hope I'm incorrect, but I just don't see it.

[APOLLO]

I don't know why everyone is so skeptical. YOu have three americans for the american market and then a brit, a dane and a "german". abraham has more than 10 mil viewers per fight regularly in germany alone without big name opponents (at least here), a fight like abraham-kessler or abraham-froch would be immense financially. and then you have taylor, ward and dirrell who are all marketable in europe as well.

the only question here is the american market imo. will people watch abraham-taylor in the US?

[nip102]

More details/rumours on boxscene

Since Friday, BoxingScene.com has been breaking the details on the hottest story in boxing - Showtime's super middleweight tournament, which involves IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham, WBA super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler, former undisputed middleweight champion Jermain Taylor, undefeated contender Andre Ward, undefeated contender Andre Dirrell and WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch.


The round robin format will feature a point system. A fighter will receive three points for a knockout win, two points for a decision win and no points for a loss. After the tourney bouts are over, the two fighters with the lowest scores will get dropped and the four with the highest will move on to the semi-finals and the two winners will meet in a final bout.

Some have wondered how Showtime could afford such a tournament on their own. It appears the tournament is not a one-network operation. According to overseas pundits Jorg Lubrich and Dietmar Kreft, several television networks are involved - including ARD (Germany), SKY Sports (UK), Viasat (Denmark) and Showtime (America) taking the lead role on the project. The entire tournament project will cost around $50,000,000 million dollars after everything is said and done. An entire plan has mapped out to cover the costs by the television networks involved.

It’s being said that the actual tournament idea was created by Kalle Sauerland, son of Sauerland Event owner Wilfried Sauerland. The elder Sauerland brought the idea to Showtime executives and worked out the presentation and sold all of the involved parties [promoters Gary Shaw, Lou DiBella, Mick Henessey, Dan Goossen] on the concept.

If everything is finalized, a tentative press conference date is already scheduled for July 13 at New York's Madison Square Garden. All of the fighters involved are going to be present for this press conference. There will be a press conference tour with the fighters, and tour stops will include London, Copenhagen and Berlin.

One of the first fights of the tournament, Arthur Abraham vs. Jermain Taylor on October 10 [Click Here For More Bouts], will likely take place at Anschutz Group’s O2 World in Berlin, which seats 14,000.

[nip102]

But there is one problem with this
Lucian Bute's Team Steamed Over Tournament Overlook
By Rick Reeno

The boxing world is buzzing after Friday's bombshell on BoxingScene.com. We reported that Showtime was moving forward with their planned super middleweight tournament. The round robin format will feature undefeated IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham, WBA super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler, former undisputed middleweight champion Jermain Taylor, undefeated contender Andre Ward, undefeated contender Andre Dirrell and undefeated WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch.

If Dan Goossen, Gary Shaw, Lou DiBella, Sauerland Event and Mick Hennessey are able to agree on all of the tournament terms and the contracts are signed by their fighters, then Showtime will pull off one of the biggest moves in the last few years.

I received a lot of calls and emails over the absence of one particular name from the tournament, undefeated IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute. I was personally told by two parties that are heavily involved in the tournament negotiations that Bute's team turned down the offer to be part of the tournament. One source claimed that Bute's team refused to agree to the round robin format.

One of the many calls I received came from Bute's matchmaker, Don Majeski, who was very angry over some of the inaccurate information going around. According to Majeski, there was never an offer presented by Showtime and Bute would have been happy to be part of the tournament.

"That is a lie [referring to Bute's refusal to enter the tournament]. How is Jermain Taylor, who lost three of his last four fights, a part of this tournament and not Bute? What credentials do Andre Ward and Andre Dirrell have over Bute? They invited two other undefeated champions to be part of the tournament but not Bute or Jean Pascal [who Majeski also works with]. Bute has been on Showtime and he's a North American fighter," Majeski said to BoxingScene.com.

"Bute will fulfill his mandatory [against Librado Andrade] and take on any and all of these fighters in the tournment and the same goes for Jean Pascal."

[LeafHawk]

I would absolutely LOVE to see this happen. It would be unlike anything the sport has seen in years.

But I give it about a 3% chance of actually happening. I hope I'm wrong, but I just can't see all the promoters agreeing to this. One of them will bitch about something and it'll all fall apart.

But lets hope that doesn't happen.