Got this earlier from Hennessy press, so excuse the mass-paste


SUPER SIX WORLD BOXING CLASSIC
– The Super Middleweights –


NEW YORK (July 13, 2009)—SHOWTIME Sports and six of the best super middleweight boxers in the world converged in New York City on Monday to announce an unprecedented new boxing tournament to be presented by SHOWTIME in the United States and throughout the world on various television networks.

The inaugural Super Six World Boxing Classic is a round-robin, six-fighter tournament featuring the class of the Super Middleweight division from home and abroad.


The world renowned fighters have a staggering combined record of 161-4-1 with 117 knockouts. There are four undefeated fighters, two current world champions, two young, unbeaten, world-ranked contenders and one former undisputed world titleholder.


The field is comprised of International Boxing Federation (IBF) middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (30-0, 24 KOs), of Germany, who will move up to challenge at 168, U.S. Olympic medalist and top-ranked contender Andre “The Matrix” Dirrell (18-0, 13 KOs) of Flint, Mich., World Boxing Council (WBC) super middleweight champion Carl “The Cobra’’ Froch (25-0, 20 KOs) of England, World Boxing Association (WBA) 168-pound champion Mikkel “Viking Warrior’’ Kessler (41-1, 31 KOs) of Denmark, former undisputed 160-pound world champion Jermain “Bad Intentions” Taylor (28-3-1, 17 KOs) of Little Rock, Ark., and U.S. Olympic gold medalist and No. 1-ranked contender Andre “S.O.G.’’ Ward (19-0, 12 KOs) of Oakland, Calif.


“The stars have truly aligned,” said Ken Hershman, Senior Vice President and General Manager, SHOWTIME Sports, who was instrumental in pulling the fighters, managers and promoters together. “It began as an intriguing concept, and through a tremendous amount of hard work on everyone’s part, we are going to pull off one of the most exciting events in boxing history.


“The 168-pound division is the most talent rich in boxing right now. And the Super Six tournament structure will deliver one compelling matchup after another. And to deliver all of this directly to our subscribers on SHOWTIME is a fight fans dream come true. I can’t wait to get started.”

In another unprecedented occurrence, five of the world’s top boxing promoters have collaborated with SHOWTIME Sports to facilitate this epic tournament. Lou DiBella of DiBella Entertainment, Dan Goossen of Goossen Tutor Promotions, Mick Hennessy of Hennessy Sports, Wilfried and Kalle Sauerland of Sauerland Event, and Gary Shaw of Gary Shaw Productions, LLC will promote the tournament which begins in October 2009 and runs through spring 2011.


The dangerous and talented six fighters have signed on to fight any, and potentially all, of the five other contestants in the tournament. All bouts will be scheduled for 12 rounds. Froch’s WBC title and Kessler’s WBA championship will be on the line at the start of tournament competition.


In the first three Group Stages of the tournament, each fighter faces three different opponents over the next 12 months in a points-based competition.


Scoring will be as follows:

Win – 2 points (with a 1-point KO/TKO bonus)

Draw – 1 point

Loss – 0 points



Based on the point standings after the third Group Stage, the top four point scorers will advance to the Semi-Finals with the lowest two being eliminated. (In the event of a tie on points, a tie-break mechanism is in place)



The Semi-Finals will match the point leader against the fourth place fighter and the second versus the third. (In the event of a draw in the Semi-Final bouts, a tie-break mechanism is in place)



The winners of the respective Semi-Final bouts will advance to the Final, which will be contested in early 2011 for the inaugural Super Six World Boxing Classic trophy.



Fights will be contested on both American and European continents. Dates and venues will be announced in the coming weeks. Group Stage 1 matchups are as follows:



GROUP STAGE 1



CARL FROCH vs. ANDRE DIRRELL (for WBC World Championship)

JERMAIN TAYLOR vs. ARTHUR ABRAHAM

MIKKEL KESSLER vs. ANDRE WARD (for WBA World Championship)



Group Stage 2 and 3 matchups will be announced.

This is just f**kin' brilliant. Can't wait for it!

Dirrel is an Olympic medalist isn't he? If so, lets hope he's not a boxer-mover type because that's the style to cause Froch problems.

Taylor is going to struggle with the power and strength of Abraham. I think their fight will go the same way as Taylor-Froch, with Taylor starting off well but Abraham catching up with him.

I think Kessler has too much for Andre. I don't think Ward will bring anything that will trouble Kessler.

Showtime have really put together a Great idea for boxing and its fans.

I had hoped Froch would fight Ward rather than Dirrell first. Dirrell has superb handspeed and can punch in high volumes. Abit untested so we will have to see if he has the toughness to conquer Froch.

I think Dirrell won a bronze while Ward won Gold.

This is exactly what boxing needs, im not particularly fussed on the points system, with the groups etc, id have thought leaving ward and direll out and then doing a 4man knockout tournie like the middleweight don king one a while back.

Just a couple of thoughts, this leaves Pavlik a bit short of options, Abraham was the big fight for him and that wont happen for at least 2 years now. Will be interesting to see how he goes, might end up fighting Williams. Second, imagine doing a Welter style tournie like this, floyd/pac/mosely/cotto/jmm/berto, hopefully HBO follows suit.

Pavlik isn;t exactly interested in fighting the best - last I heard they were still considering whether Duddy could be made.

I think that Kelly Pavlik has missed a trick here. He would have been a huge name in this tournament. Shame that.

Another two who seems to have missed out a bit are Lucien Bute and Librado Andrade. Two top boxers at 168 but hey, I give Showtime an awful lot of credit for getting these guys together!

Should be interesting, although I think that Kessler has too much for the rest with the exception of possibly Abraham. Although, having said that, Kessler is a fair bit taller than Abraham so that may work in his advantage???

Looking forward to it!

Time for a healthy dose of cynicism - take your pick of who gets injured in training first and predict who replaces them.

Honestly I think Ward may cause Kessler the most problems. His speed will be difficult to handle, but he is kinda chinny from what I've heard. Kessler I'm hoping will be at his best though!

Those two should be fighting each other though.

What does that say about the division when there's over 8 guys who should fight each other!!!

ward didnt impress me against miranda, on the other hand i think dirrell could cause a major upset against froch.

the match between taylor and abraham really interest me coz we will see how much taylor has left and how good arthur is

on the whole this is a brilliant idea by showtimwe and i cant wait until they get started

It says that until recently, Frank Warren had an interest.

I cant help thinking Abraham v Froch is gonna be a great fight.

In fact I remember getting an email read out to Froch on Bunce's boxing hour saying I thought a fight between him and AA would be a great matchup...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhDcqKMR ... r_embedded

If this is a success (which it kinda has to be) all the other divisions might just follow suit as its a sure fire way to get boxing back as a mainstream sport.

The only issue is promoters wont be able to milk as much cash out of these situations as they would if they were all induvidual events and they might prevent it from happening more frequently

I can't believe this is actually going ahead!!
Fantastic for boxing.
I think Ward and Dirrell and Taylor were all thrown in there to keep up the US interest, but I personally would have had Bute in there, in place of one of them, probably Taylor.
Means there is the potential for a title fight in all 3 fights, and the potential for a 3 belt unification before the semi finals even take off.

But all in all, this is fantastic news.
I think Dirrell does have the potential to give Froch real trouble, as he is in the mould of Pascal, who had good success when he pressed the action, but I'm not sure that his chin has really been tested and Carl should certainly answer that question.
Abraham is a bit of an unknown as he has moved up from middleweight and we don;t know how his power is going to transfer with the additional 8lbs and more durable opponents, but hs is stepping right into the mix of top contenders so absolutely fair play to him.

Pavlik has missed out and will be languishing in the now largely untalented middleweight division.
He has Sturm, and then a bunch of uninspiring fights left to take, and in all likelihood, will move up anyway.

I think Kessler takes this tournament.
Ward will be one of the tougher opponents he can face though.
I think Froch is tailor made for him tbh, and if Carl doesn't get ko'ed by Kessler if and when the match up is made, then I will be very surprised.

I think Dirrell and Taylor are likely to be the first eliminated, but Abraham and Froch may find themselves struggling.