Perez, Darchinyan, Mares and Agbeko officially in four-man tournament

Dan Rafael's weekly Notebook at ESPN.com is up this morning. There's a feature on Chad Dawson since Dawson is back in the ring tomorrow, but the standout story for me is that the rumored and highly-anticipated four-man bantamweight tournament from Showtime is moving forward.

Yonnhy Perez, Vic Darchinyan, Abner Mares and Joseph Agbeko are all in. Perez will meet Agbeko in a rematch of a tremendous fight from Halloween 2009, and Darchinyan will face Mares. The first two fights will be on the same card, which is very exciting. The dates being mentioned are November 6 and December 18. The November date had already been reported for Perez-Agbeko II, but it has to make sense for all four fighters and the promoters now, and this is a heavyweight promotional crew. Gary Shaw represents Perez and Darchinyan, while Don King promotes Agbeko and Mares is a Golden Boy fighter.

There is plenty of history involved, too. Perez has fought Agbeko and Mares, Agbeko has fought Darchinyan and Perez, Darchinyan has fought Agbeko, Mares has fought Perez. It's too bad a Super Six format couldn't be worked out, but Top Rank didn't want their fighters (Fernando Montiel and Nonito Donaire) involved, and Hozumi Hasegawa also turned down an invitation. It left four, and it's hard to argue with the quality of fighters and the quality of all the matchups.

Kudos to the four fighters, the promoters, and again to Showtime in setting up a special boxing event.

Other bits from the Notebook, which as always you should go read:

• Sounds like Bradley-Alexander is just some dotted I's and crossed T's from getting done for January 29.
• The description of Humberto Soto not fighting Urbano Antillon and instead taking the unknown and likely well overmatched Fidel Monterossa Munoz on September 4 is pretty damning: "Soto decided against facing original foe Urbano Antillon." The plan still appears to be for Soto to pick the bones of Marco Antonio Barrera sometime after the Munoz bout.
• Don King and Lou DiBella are discussing an all-Detroit 154-pound title fight between Cornelius Bundrage and Ronald Hearns. Emanuel Steward would be working the corner opposite the son of his greatest student if it came about.
• Joel Julio will fight on the Adamek-Grant PPV from Integrated Sports. Julio's opponent is Jamaal Davis (12-6, 6 KO).