Super-Six Fall Out: Team Dirrell “We Will Never Go Out of the Country Again!”

Super-Six Fall Out: Team Dirrell “We Will Never Go Out of the Country Again!”
By
Brent Matteo Alderson

Showtime’s Ken Hershman has done a wonderful job over at Showtime and staged a major coupe when he pioneered the Super-six tournament which has become boxing’s equivalent of college basketball’s final four. The tournament is a fight fan’s dream and the first two bouts of the tournament were thrilling and the entire concept has vaulted Showtime to the front of cable sports programming.

Most insiders were skeptical about Showtime’s ability to stage such a tournament due the industry’s long history of unethical practices regarding contractual obligations. And now just after two of the tournament’s twelve bouts, there are already a couple of bumps in the road.

First Mikkel Kessler’s former promoter, Mogens Palle, has filed suit against Showtime claiming contractual interference and now after losing by split decision to Carl Froch in a fight that many insiders felt Dirrell won, the 2004 Olympic bronze medalist’s team is adamant about not going overseas for another fight and seems disenchanted with the tournament thus far.

What I inferred from the interview with Andre’s unlce and assistant trainer, Leon Lawson, is that Andre’s continued involvement in the tournament is anything, but a sure thing.

FightFanNation.com: How was England Leon?

Leon Lawson: England was cool; believe it or not the hospitality was great. I don’t know if they were buttering us up for the scoring they were going to put on us, but the trip was good besides that. Andre clearly won the fight. They took it from us, but some things are in the works so we are going to see how everything plays out.

FightFanNation.com: You guys are scheduled to face Arthur Abraham next right?

Leon Lawson: Yah, Yah that is where we are scheduled in the tournament, but first things first. We need to figure out how this fight went. We need to set down and discuss some things with the team. The way we got done was unfair. If you go to the internet or any boxing website and look at any comments that people left, including Carl Froch fans, British fans, they aren’t even calling this the super six, they’re calling it the super fix. This is coming from his fans. It’s not a secret, nobody has to keep it quiet, you know Andre dominated Froch.

FightFanNation.com: I thought it was a close fight, but I though the officiating was bad with Andre losing a point when Froch was rough housing and rabbit punching the whole night!

Leon Lawson: We knew there was go to be rough housing, but we didn’t prepare for that man. There was no way we could have prepared for it. The only way we could have prepared for a fight like that is if we brought some MMA guys in. And some of the stuff he was doing is illegal in MMA.

FightFanNation.com: I hope Andre stays in the tournament; Arthur Abraham is a tough guy

Leon Lawson: We aren’t worried about any of those guys. We’ll whip them all. The only way they got the fight is by cheating us. We will never go out of the country again. I’m saying that now, that’s a guarantee. We see why Floyd Mayweather and Roy Jones never went out of the country and why Andre Ward doesn’t want to go out of the country because of stuff like this. One thing about it, this was supposed to bring life to the game and instead it gave it another black eye. They are trying to kill boxing. Believe it or not we had a talk with the referee and we told him, ‘could you watch the rabbit punching, we just want a fair fight’, but as you could see it was so one sided, it was like we were doomed before Andre even stepped in that ring.

Notes:
I had Dirrell winning by two points, but Carl Froch’s interview afterward was so persuasive that he had me questioning whether or notDirrell had done enough to take the title from the champion in his hometown.
I still pick Dirrell to beat Abraham, but my picks in this tournament have been awful. As of now I’m 0-2.

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Brent Matteo Alderson, a graduate of UCLA, has been part of the staff at BoxingScene.com since 2004 and now works as the head writer for FighFanNation.com. His published work has appeared in publications such as Ring Magazine, KO, World Boxing, Boxing 2008, and Latin Boxing Magazine. Alderson has also been featured on the ESPN Classic television program “Who’s Number One?”