Excitement Promised in Showtime Super Middleweight Boxing Tournament

Showtime has announced the creation of a six-boxer super middleweight tournament that has fans both excited and puzzled.

The excitement comes from the fact that the six boxers -- Mikkel Kessler (right), Carl Froch, Arthur Abraham, Jermain Taylor, Andre Ward and Andre Dirrell -- are some of the world's best super middleweights and are virtually guaranteed to provide several exciting fights leading up to the finale in 2011.

The puzzlement comes from the fact that a tournament like this -- including a round-robin group stage that awards points for wins (and a bonus point for a knockout) in '09 and '10, followed by a single-elimination four-boxer playoff in '11 -- has never been done before. There are also questions about the selection of the boxers, and whether all six boxers will stick around to the tournament's conclusion.

So I asked Showtime boxing boss Ken Hershman on Monday to explain how he can pull this whole thing off. The full interview is below.

Michael David Smith: What's your brief sales pitch to boxing fans for why they should be excited about this tournament?
Ken Hershman: It's the best fighting the best. It's really, to me, what boxing is all about and it's also what sports is all about. I don't think in boxing history we've ever seen all these top-ranked boxers agree to fight each other, win lose or draw, through the end of the tournament.

Has there ever been anything quite like this in boxing?
No, I'm pretty sure there hasn't. There have been a few other tournaments that were single elimination tournaments over shorter timespans, but I don't think there's ever been anything of this kind. I hope this will be the model for lots of future tournaments.

When the tournament is over, do you think boxing fans and the media will recognize the winner as the undisputed super middleweight champion?
I don't see how you couldn't. Whoever emerges as the champion of this tournament will have fought three or four of the other top-rated fighters. There's no easy draw in this tournament, so I don't see how you can say the winner of this isn't the world champion.

Lucian Bute will have a rematch with Librado Andrade in the fall. Isn't this tournament missing something without those two in it?
I don't think so. In a perfect world you'd like to have everybody, but eight fighters would make it too unwieldy, it would take too long, and we all know that in boxing it's tough enough to put something together like what we've put together that will last 18 months or two years. Adding another whole round for two more fighters would have been time prohibitive and cost prohibitive.

It is difficult in boxing to get this many boxers to sign on for something like this. How certain can you be that all six boxers will go through with this tournament to its conclusion?
Well, that's what everybody signed on for and everybody is excited to do. The way it works is you continue in the tournament at least through the group stage, win lose or draw. I don't think there's ever been anything like that, and I think it solves a big problem with other tournaments.

You've mentioned that there's never been anything like this in boxing. How did you come up with the idea? Are you emulating other sports? Is anything in this an attempt to emulate mixed martial arts?
Not mixed martial arts. We've looked at the tournaments in other sports, such as World Cup soccer, which works very well. We were trying to solve a problem here, which is that in single-elimination tournaments, there's a lot on the line. People are more apt to bail, one fight they're out and then there's a better offer somewhere down the road. We thought using the group stage assured us of the best fighting the best and gave us the best opportunity to make this tournament work in the long run. It's going to be exciting for the fans.

Is the format completely set, and are the dates of the fights set?
The format is completely set. The dates of the fights will evolve. We have to be practical with that, as far as what's on the sports calendar, what's on the boxing calendar and how far these things can be spaced apart. If somebody gets a cut or gets knocked out and is put on suspension, we have to be flexible enough to accommodate something like that. The goal is to have this whole thing wrapped up by mid-2011.

In the group stage, a boxer gets three points for winning a fight by knockout or two points for winning a fight by decision. Why reward knockouts?
First, to provide some more compelling drama to the tournament. Someone who may have lost a previous fight can make up ground with a knockout, and that could make for a more exciting fight. We think that's an interesting twist.

You said you hope this will be a model for other tournaments. Are you already looking at doing this in another weight class beyond super middleweights? Do you expect this to catch on and become a standard method of crowning a champion?
We're trying just to get through the launch here. That's our primary focus. The super middleweight division is unique because there's an amazing depth of talent, and the fact that we've been having conversations with other fighters who could be in the tournament is a testament to how deep that talent is. I don't know that there's another weight division out there that has that yet, but we'll look at doing this for other weight classes. Super middleweight is the best division to start with.

Will every fight be on Showtime for the duration of the tournament, or might some of them be on other networks or on pay-per-view?
Our plan is that everything is going to be on Showtime. That, to me, is another exciting aspect of this tournament, that fans of boxing who have Showtime you get this as part of your subscription.

When will the tournament start?
It will probably be either mid-October or the first Saturday of November. We'll nail that down in the next day or two.

How will you promote the tournament, both to let fans know about it and to help fans wrap their heads around the format of something that has never been done before in boxing?
Today we have a press conference here in New York, where we outline the details, the structure and how it will work, then we're going off to the European cities to have a couple of more of these. Then we'll roll out a dedicated web site so people can follow the tournament and understand how the tournament is structured.

I know you're a boxing fan. On a personal level, how excited are you about this?
I've been involved in a lot of the most historic boxing events. That's been a privilege in my career: Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson, the ear biting rematch, Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson, watching Diego Corrales and José Luis Castillo put on what I think was the best fight of all time. So I've seen my fair share of amazing boxing events. The only thing I'd say here is that I think this is one of the proudest if not the proudest moment of my career. I'm looking forward to this as much as anything I've done in boxing. I think it's going to be spectacular for the sport, spectacular for the fans, spectacular for the fighters. I can't wait for this to start.