Stage two of the suddenly even more compelling Super Six World Boxing Classic is starting to take loose form, as dates for the next batch of fights have started to float around.
January 23 is being looked at as the date for Arthur Abraham's fight with Andre Dirrell, for which Abraham will come to the United States. Of all the fighters, Dirrell has the weakest chance at hometown advantage. Being from Michigan gives Dirrell very limited options, and he's got the smallest following of anyone in the tournament. There hasn't been a major fight in the Great Lakes state for a good while now, and I don't see the interest being there out in Flint (Dirrell's hometown) or in Detroit. The closest he might be able to get is Chicago, which is a long drive from Dirrell's side of the state, or maybe Cleveland. Or they could just say, "What the hell? Stick it in New York," which is probably most likely.
But the New York thing would depend on the date. Bob Arum and Top Rank will be running at WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden that night with their HBO double-header (Luevano-Lopez, Gamboa-Mtagwa). If Showtime could move the date up a week to January 16 (their TV graphic this past weekend did have Abraham-Dirrell coming in January, and nothing more), everything could be hunky dory. They also wouldn't face any TV opposition. Going to January 30 is surely out of the question, what with HBO having the Shane Mosley-Andre Berto fight that night. There's splitting audiences, and then there's scheduling two major fights people are interested in on the same night. The latter almost never happens, and there are good reasons for it. Both Mosley-Berto and Abraham-Dirrell are too expensive to lose viewers. Maybe even move it to early February if need be.
It appears likely, too, that the Carl Froch-Mikkel Kessler bout is going to take place on March 6 in Denmark. This fight has such an interesting dynamic, and so many angles. Froch deserved to lose the fight he won over Andre Dirrell, in the opinion of many, but he didn't, so he remains unbeaten and holds the WBC title. Kessler was routed by Andre Ward on Saturday to lose his WBA title, but if Kessler beats Froch, not only is he right back in the tournament, but he's right back in the title mix with the WBC strap. Kessler is still going to be favored by a lot of people in this fight, I expect.
There's nothing rumored yet for Andre Ward-Jermain Taylor, and I'd assume Taylor gets "home field" for that one, which would probably put the bout in Memphis.