After
what has only seemed like a never-ending journey, Showtime's “Super Six” comes
to its conclusion this Saturday night at the Boardwalk Hall as Carl Froch and
Andre Ward square off for super middleweight supremacy (with all due respect to
one Lucian Bute). What began in 2009 with great buzz comes to an end with a
sense that it's just time to move on as the calendar moves to 2012. The
brainchild of Ken Hershman, the former czar of Showtime's boxing division, it
was great in theory, innovative in concept, yet flawed in reality.
It
was quite the undertaking by the network who sought to accomplish what was
thought to be the impossible- bringing rival factions together for one common
cause.
For
a short while, it was successful and a critical success.
That
said, unfortunately, those involved simply couldn't help themselves. And soon
the likes of Andre Dirrell (claiming “lingering neurological issues” diagnosed
by the famed “Dr. Shaw High”) pulled out from his match-up against Ward.
Dirrell, not-so-coincidentally, makes his miraculous return to the ring later
this month just as the “Super Six” is wrapping up. In an ironic twist, he
returns on the same “ShoBox” card on Dec. 30th alongside Jermain
Taylor, who was literally knocked out of this tournament by Arthur Abraham.
Then you had Mikkel Kessler, who took himself out of this super middleweight scrum
claiming an eye injury and affected vision- and then proceeded to speed off
like Jimmie Johnson in his sports car after making that announcement.
The
two finalists’ respective roads to the finals embody everything that was good
and bad about the “Super Six.” While Froch has taken on the gauntlet of
Dirrell, Abraham, Kessler and Glen Johnson. Ward, after his eye-opening victory
over Kessler, went about a year-and-a-half before facing anyone that was in the
original field of opponents. He would face the rather forgettable duo of Allan
Green and Sakio Bika before defeating the devalued Abraham this past May- all
in the state of California, while every other participant had to travel abroad
at least once. And while the live gates were predictably strong for the
European bouts, the fights on American soil struggled at the gate and the two
semifinal bouts in Carson, California and Atlantic City failed to draw,
combined, what this past weekend’s bout between Lamont Peterson and Amir Khan
did in D.C. (lending further proof that the whole concept of “important” fights
is another flimsy concept pushed by bloggers and “Harry Hardcore”). Froch-Ward,
which unfortunately had to be rescheduled for the weekend before Christmas,
will most likely fail to draw what Arturo Gatti did at the same venue for his
weigh-ins.
Meanwhile,
the one marquee attraction in the division, Bute, kept playing to huge numbers
in Montreal while eventually inking a multi-million dollar deal with Showtime (with
the hope that he will face the winner of Saturday night’s finale in 2012).
This
isn't to say that the “Super Six” didn't have its bright moments or positives.
The reality is that in between all the snafus and less-than-honorable behavior
of those involved, when it was all said and done, we got some pretty good
fights (like Kessler-Froch, for instance). Also, Froch, Dirrell and Abraham all
suffered their first losses during this process but Froch and Ward have clearly
ascended in status within the sport.
The
question moving forward is: Will there be another round-robin format of this
kind? Hershman will soon be running the boxing department across the street at
HBO. HBO is about big events and stars (sometimes to the network’s detriment)
and not novel concepts. Showtime, which for years, played David to HBO's
Goliath, had to take such risks to drum up interest in its boxing franchise.
Now, the man who created and pushed this concept through thick and thin is no
longer there. Also, while the super middleweight division has enjoyed some
depth, at times, it seemed as though Showtime became too bogged down in one
division.
You
get the sense that the “Super Six” will have the staying power of “new” Coke
and not the designated hitter. It was a novel idea that was better in theory
than in real life. It had to be tried out once and, odds are, it will be
implemented just this one time. It's kinda like “open scoring.” It seems like a
great idea at the time and the medicine to a lot of ills, till you actually use
it and you find out that it comes with its own set of problems. I think, in the
future when faced with a plethora of talent in a particular weight class, the sport’s
decision makers will just concentrate on making fights within that division
that make the most sense, then go from there.
So
will a bona fide, crossover, transcendent star be born after Froch and Ward do
battle on Showtime this weekend?
For
the $26 million invested in this, they certainly hope so.
