I am off to England for the opening weekend of the Super Six World Boxing Classic and the gravity of the moment is hitting me, as it is everyone else associated with this rather grand event.
Without overstating the case, this is a pretty significant undertaking. What makes it even more so is the fact that this is something that has never been done. Very seldom can you say you are participating in something in a sport that has not been done.
As this “World Cup†type tourney begins, it is thrusting boxers, promoters, TV executives, sportscasters and fans into some uncharted territory. There have been tournaments in boxing before, but none with this format, none that stretched this long and none that had such logistical challenges.
Six boxers will; be bound together for months, facing each other and no one else. They will be scouting future opponents and preparing for their own battles at the same time. They will know what lies ahead of them and have to carefully plan what they do in the ring so they can keep winning, remain injury free and have enough in the tank to get through five matches against top competition over the next 18-24 months to win this tourney.
One of the intriguing aspects of this is that most fighters don’t fight that many matches in a row against the best men in their division. Recent examples of tough schedules for fighters are revealing when compared to this super middleweight task. Take Erik Morales, who within a 24 month period fought super featherweights Manny Pacquiao three times and Marco Antonio Barrera once. He was 1-3 in those fights.
In the 1999-2000 calendar years, Oscar De La Hoya took on the best welterweights available to him; Ike Quartey, Felix Trinidad and Shane Mosley. He went 1-2. More recently from 2006-2008, Miguel Cotto, within the welterweight division, battled Zab Judah, Shane Mosley, Antonio Margarito and Joshua Clottey. Despite a 3-1 record in that group of fights, we know it took a toll on Cotto—though part of that toll may have come courtesy of the “extra powerful†gloves of Margarito. (more…)
