World Boxing Super Series announces first round matchups

The World Boxing Super Series has announced its first round pairings for their super middleweight and cruiserweight tournaments, and we’ve certainly got some enticing matchups in the quarterfinal round of each eight-man bracket.

Here are the super middleweight matchups:

• George Groves (26-3, 19 KO) vs Jamie Cox (23-0, 13 KO)
• Callum Smith (22-0, 17 KO) vs Erik Skoglund (26-0, 12 KO)
• Chris Eubank Jr (24-1, 19 KO) OR Arthur Abraham (46-5, 30 KO) vs Avni Yildirim (16-0, 10 KO)
• Juergen Braehmer (48-3, 35 KO) vs Rob Brant (22-0, 15 KO)

And here are the cruiserweight matchups:

• Oleksandr Usyk (12-0, 10 KO) vs Marco Huck (40-4-1, 27 KO)
• Murat Gassiev (24-0, 17 KO) vs Krzysztof Wlodarczyk (53-3-1, 37 KO)
• Mairis Briedis (22-0, 18 KO) vs Mike Perez (22-2-1, 14 KO)
• Yunier Dorticos (21-0, 20 KO) vs Dmitry Kudrayshov (21-1, 21 KO)

Both sides have good stuff, and I think as much as we sort of downplayed the 168-pound tournament compared to the cruisers, the super middleweights came together pretty nicely, too.

What matchups are you most looking forward to seeing?