Does the HBO light welterweight tournament need more participants?

By Chris Williams: With the recent rumors about HBO sports possibly putting together a four-man light welterweight tournament involving Amir Khan, Devon Alexander, Marcos Maidana and Victor Ortiz, I think the tournament won’t have the same effect as Showtime’s Super Six tournament because there simply isn’t enough participants in the tourney to make it interesting.

A tourney involving only four fighters isn’t much of a tourney as far as I’m concerned. I understand why HBO want the tournament to have only four fighters, because it would mean that it would be over much sooner and they’d have a winner within months, not over a year period like Showtime. However, with only four fighters in the tournament, it doesn’t even seem like a tournament and there’s too many missing players for it to really interest me.

I like the fighters in the tournament, but there needs to be at least two more fighters picked from the light welterweight division to make it interesting for me. Why not invite Timothy Bradley, the World Boxing Organization champion, and possibly Lamont Peterson, Juan Diaz, Paulie Malignaggi or Juan Urango.

Having Bradley take part in the light welterweight tournament is a must, because he’s seen by many boxing fans to be the best fighter in the light welterweight division. The light welterweight tourney doesn’t seem like a tournament without the best fighter in the division taking part in it.

And you can’t leave out at least Malignaggi or Peterson. You can flip a coin to see which one takes part in the tourney. I’m okay with the main picks of the tourney – Khan, Maidana, Ortiz and Alexander. Those are all great picks to interest fans, but that’s not enough fighters to really make it a tourney. That’s kind of a joke, and seems like a cheap imitation of what Showtime is doing with their Super Six tourney.

If HBO wants to do things right, they need to either match Showtime or maybe even extend it to eight fighters instead of just six. At least HBO would be showing some good fights for a change. I’ve seen too many boring match-ups in the past year or two that I feel never should have made it on the network.

In place of their continued dragging out of flawed prospects and champions that don’t entertain or measure up to the hype, HBO should put more of an effort into make the light welterweight tournament something that boxing fans would want to watch by putting enough quality fighters in the tournament for it to be worthwhile and to seem like an actual tournament.

I can see why they chose the light welterweight division rather than say the welterweight or light middleweight divisions, because the welterweight and light middleweight divisions are barren of stars. There’s Andre Berto, who hasn’t looked entertaining in quite some time, Shane Mosley, Floyd Mayweather and Miguel Cotto. That’s about it. Antonio Margarito is on suspension and isn’t available.

And Manny Pacquiao isn’t really a welterweight and probably wouldn’t be interested in taking part in a tournament. I doubt Mlosley or Mayweather would like the idea of fighting in a tourney either, unless it was one where they were paid really well to take part in.

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