There are a lot of things wrong with boxing, such as superstar fighters not making weight thus hurting or ruining an event, bad decisions by judges who don’t know what they are doing, weak referees who should not be working title fights but are because of politics and events that have an intriguing main event but not much else.
Having four major governing bodies isn’t cool. The nefarious machinations of ruthless managers and promoters don’t help our maligned sport, either.
Stephen Duval, with an assist from former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, are trying to do something about all of this. The two on Monday announced an eight-man Superfighter event that will take place Dec. 2 in Melbourne, Australia.
Eight heavyweights will square off in a one-night tournament at Telstra Dome. They will fight four-round bouts, going from quarterfinals to semifinals to the championship pitting the two fighters who have gone through unscathed.
The winner will take home $5 million.
The tournament will feature some of the best in the division, but none of the reigning champions, all of whom are from Eastern Bloc countries. Competing will be Calvin Brock, O’Neil Bell, Chris Byrd, top contender Samuel Peter, Oliver McCall, Jameel McCline, Juan Carlos Gomez and Ty Fields. In case one should fall out, top 10 contender Sinan Samil Sam will be available in reserve.
Duval, CEO of Superfighter, and Lewis explained the method for their madness during an international conference call Monday, and it seemed feasable that this is something that can work.
“It’s a way to create excitement, more excitement in a shortened form,” Lewis said. “Instead of, you know, watching a fight that goes 12 rounds and, you know, halfway through the fightfight that goes 12 rounds and, you know, halfway through the fight it’s kind of dull, you’re really getting a lot of action in a short space of time.
“And I think the fans will clamor for that more and even the boxers will feel that they need to put out a lot more in these rounds.”
They have to, or they won’t win. That’s because Superfighter will have a scoring system that will virtually force fighters to stay active.
“What we have come up with is a weighted realtime scoring system that rewards constant effective boxing out of the entire four rounds,” said Duval, who is from Australia. “One point for a clean hit, three points for a power hit that rocks the fighter but does not knock them down and anywhere between five and 10 points for a knockdown.”
There will be three judges scoring on an electronic system. The fighter will get a score at the end of each round based on the average of the three scores, and the scoring will be accumulative. A fourth “intensity judge” can also award points for constantly attacking, so as to dissuade a fighter from coasting.
“The biggest point that we obviously believe is that what we are bringing is intensity-saturated,” Duval said. “And there is no undercard, which is one of the biggest things. Eight elite fighters up to 28 rounds of boxing. The same guys that you see in the final, you see in the quarterfinals.”
Said Lewis: “You know, imagine seeing in a weekend Lennox Lewis, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and (Vitali) Klitschko. Boxing fans, they would love to see how exciting that would be.”
The thing is, not all eight of the fighters in this tournament are elite. And none of them are Lewis, Tyson, Holyfield or either Klitschko – Wladimir and Vitali.
Brock and Peter certainly are elite. Brock (29-0, 22 KOs) will be challenging Wladimir Klitschko for his International Boxing Federation championship Nov. 11 in New York City. Peter (27-1, 22 KOs) is the top-ranked challenger in the World Boxing Council rankings.
Then we have Byrd (39-3-1, 20 KOs), the former IBF champion who lost his belt via seventh-round technical knockout to Wladimir Klitschko last April. Really, Byrd doesn’t do much for this tournament. He was never the most exciting fighter, and was never considered a solid heavyweight champion.
Bell (26-1-1, 24 KOs) is an elite fighter, but as a cruiserweight world champion. McCline (38-6-3, 23 KOs) is ranked No. 11 by the World Boxing Organization and No. 12 by the IBF and the WBC. But to call him an elite fighter at this stage of his career might be a stretch.
Gomez (39-1, 33 KOs) is a former cruiserweight champion who moved up to heavyweight four years ago, and Fields is someone (37-1, 34 KOs) with a good record, but no good opponents. As for McCall, well, he was good once upon a time. The 41-year-old former champion is 48-8 with 35 knockouts.
Believe it or not – and this will kill you – the WBC has McCall ranked No. 5.
Duval said that some of the four reigning world champions were offered the opportunity to participate in this first event. All declined.
“Not everything can change overnight,” Duval said. “You know, these guys have got belts to protect, that they feel they deserve. If they were defeated in the Superfighter event, you know, they wouldn’t feel too happy about being the heavyweight champion of the world and being defeated in the Superfighter heavyweight event.
But this is only the first Superfighter event. There will be more, Duval said, and both he and Lewis believe that ego and money will eventually bring the very best to the dance.
“This is the kind of event that will attract them because they’ll look at the prize money and say, ‘Well, you know, I’m the best heavyweight in the world and that’s the best Superfighter – I need to challenge this guy,” said Lewis, who will do commentary for the pay-per-view feed, which will cost viewers $49.95.
There’s more to this interesting event – such as instant replay. You know how sometimes fighters are given credit for a knockdown when he should not have been? If there is a question in that regard, the referee can stop the fight and look at a replay. The replay could also be used to determine if a fighter was cut because of a head-butt or a punch, or to determine a foul.
Duval said this is to ensure that the fighting most deserving of winning, does.
Another aspect is everyone in the arena and those watching on television will know what the accumulative scores are after every round, as well as during the rounds as the points are being compiled.
The bottom line is, in Duval we have a promoter who apparently has taken great pains to assemble an event that could pump up a sagging sport. There seems to be a concerted effort to make sure the fan goes home happy, or is satisfied when he shuts off the TV.
For that, he should be applauded.
Duval said that plan are already in the works for Superfighter events in 2007 and 2008. And, he said, not all of these events will be in the heavyweight division.
“Make no mistake, this thing is here to stay,” Duval said. “And it’s moving from the Heavyweight division down through the other ranks.”