Another huge setback has befallen that already hobbled Super Six tournament. Former WBC titlist Carl Froch has been forced to pull out of his anticipated October 2 showdown with Arthur Abraham due to a back injury.
Froch suffered the unspecified injury in training and won’t be back to full strength in time to meet Abraham next month in Monaco. Due to Mikkel Kessler withdrawing last month due to an eye injury, the Showtime network has reworked the tournament by eliminating Stage Three, and having two semi-final bouts of Froch-Abraham and Andre Ward vs. Andre Dirrell. The latter is also being rescheduled from September 25 to a contract dispute keeping both American fighters out of the ring. Showtime has sent legal warning letters to both camps advising of legal action if the fight does not happen by October.
Arthur Abraham’s coach Uli Wegner was stunned by the news, and hinted that Froch may be trying to avoid his fighter. Several months ago, both camps had a brief impasse over where the fight would be held, causing Froch to threaten not to fight if it were held in Germany or his preferred home country of England. The camps later agreed on the neutral ground of Monaco.
“We are angry,” Wegner said. “Froch wants the Arthur fight out of the way.”
Johannes Berendt, spokesman for Abraham’s promoter Wilfried Sauerland, asserted that they will only accept one this one delay and look to have a rescheduled date before the end of the year.
“We accept this decision only once,” he said.
Both Abraham and Froch are coming off losses in their last bouts. In March, Abraham was pushing for a come from behind KO when he was DQ’d for punching a fallen Andre Dirrell after he slipped on the canvas. In April, Froch lost a close decision to Mikkel Kessler.
At press time, Carl Froch has not released a statement detailing his injury.
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What a clusterfuck the Super Six has degraded into. It’s no fault of Showtime, but displays the immense difficulty in modern times of trying to consistently pit the best fighters against each other.
There wasn’t any negative comments regarding the pullouts of Jermain Taylor and Mikkel Kessler. But I sense people will be highly suspicious this time. Yes, athletes get injured all the time. But with the previous venue dispute between the two, and the WBC abruptly moving their title match away from them to Ward-Dirrell (also delayed with contract issues), there is enough ammunition for already pessimistic fans to believe there’s a bunch of behind the scenes politics going on.
The sad thing is Showtime really had the best intentions with starting this tournament. I’m sure they expected some trial and error, but nothing like this. I’m certain these problems will ensure that no future tournaments will feature a round-robin/group stage format.
2010 is the “Year of the Non-Fight” it seems. But if Froch-Abraham and Dirrell-Ward can get done before 2011, it’ll make up for the disappointment we’re all feeling now.
Beats, Boxing and Mayhem 