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The Las Vegas Sun said today that the date for the final matchup of the first leg of the round robin portion for Showtime's Super Six World Boxing Classic will be November 21, when Mikkel Kessler meets Andre Ward. I'm guessing that'll be in Copenhagen or in Germany, but the Sun says there will be American and European venues, although that might be worded strangely. Abraham-Taylor is in Germany on October 17, with Froch-Dirrell in Nottingham on the same date.
Showtime will also be airing Kessler's upcoming mandatory defense against Gusmyl Perdomo on September 12.
For the record, all of these fights are going to be broadcast on normal Showtime, not pay-per-view, and I've noticed a lot of people wondering how that will play out. The tournament figures to conclude in the spring of 2011. By then, there's a slight chance that the tournament finals -- and maybe a "third-place" fight between the semifinal losers -- could be packaged into a pay-per-view if the tournament got REALLY hot and everyone in it become a much bigger star in America than they are now. But right now, is there a single fight in the tournament that would really sell American PPVs? No, there isn't. If you put all six guys into one show and put it on PPV, you're still not going to top, like, 200-250K in PPV buys. One of the things this tournament is designed to do is make bigger stars out of all six guys.
I'm almost certain the entire tournament will air on regular Showtime. Showtime also isn't a big PPV provider, they haven't done PPV since Mayorga-Vargas -- doesn't that fight sound like it's ancient history now?
So the first round matchups:
- Arthur Abraham v. Jermain Taylor, Germany, Oct. 17
- Carl Froch v. Andre Dirrell, England, Oct. 17
- Mikkel Kessler v. Andre Ward, TBA, Nov. 21