Which two fighters will be eliminated from the Super Six tournament after group stage 3?

By William Mackay: After the three group stages are completed with the Super Six tournament, four fighters with the best records will move forward to the semi finals while two of the fighters with the worst records will be eliminated. After group stage 1 of the Super Six tourney, Arthur Abraham, Carl Froch and Andre Ward have come out the winners while Andre Dirrell, Jermain Taylor and Mikkel Kessler have all lost their fights and picked up zero points in losing.

Abraham is currently in the lead with three points (he picked up an extra point with his knock out win over Taylor on October 17th. The other winners Ward and Froch both have two points each. In the next group 2 part of the competition, Dirrell takes on the tournament leader Abraham, Kessler fights Froch, and Taylor faces Ward. Below are the fights still remaining in the group 2 and group 3 stages of the Super Six tournament:

Group Stage 2

Jermain Taylor vs. Andre Ward
Carl Froch vs. Mikkel Kessler
Andre Dirrell vs. Arthur Abraham

Group Stage 3

Jermain Taylor vs. Mikkel Kessler
Arthur Abraham vs. Carl Froch
Andre Ward vs. Andre Dirrell

Likely fighters to be eliminated:

Jermain Taylor – In looking at the current match ups, it’s not hard to envision Taylor losing his next two fights to Ward and Kessler, and possibly being one of the two fighters that wind up being eliminated from the tournament after the group stage competition is completed. Ward and Kessler would seem to be a bit too tough for Taylor at this point, given that Taylor has been knocked out in three of his last four bouts. If Taylor’s chin can hold up in those two fights, he may be able to make it close enough to earn a decision. However, he’ll have to fight much harder than he did in his fight against Abraham for that to happen. Taylor looked as if he was trying to pace himself in that fight to conserve energy so that he wouldn’t gas out again like he had in his 12th round knockout loss to Froch last April. If Taylor was pacing himself, it didn’t work because he was eventually stopped by Abraham anyway. Taylor has to fight hard enough so that he’s not losing rounds and falling behind in the fight against Ward and Kessler. Both of those fighters are excellent boxers and will likely beat Taylor either by decision or knockout. If Taylor loses his remaining two fights in the Super Six tournament, it would give him a record of 0-3.

Carl Froch – Although Froch is currently undefeated and won his first fight in the Super Six tournament against Dirrell, he won it by a controversial decision and didn’t look good in the fight. Many people feel that Froch fought poor enough to lose. However, he has two opponents ahead of him with Kessler coming up next in April, and then Abraham after that. Froch is a tough fighter, and I have no doubts he’ll be fighting his heart out against both of these opponents, but I can’t see him winning either of those fights. Abraham is arguably even more powerful that Froch, and a better defensive fighter. Froch’s style of slugging will make it easy for Abraham, who does well against opponents that come after him. Likewise, Kessler looks to be too skilled for Froch to handle and barring some kind of weird decision, it’s likely that Kessler will school Froch. If Froch loses both his next two fights, his record will be 1-2.

Andre Dirrell – Andre has great overall talent, with fast hands, good power, outstanding defensive ability and excellent size. However, what Dirrell is missing his aggression and a willingness to mix it up. His peck and run style of fighting may work in most of his fights, but against the top fighters in the Super Six tourney, he needs to bring more to the table than that. Dirrell fought passively in his 12 round decision loss to Froch on October 17th. A case can be made that Dirrell should have won the fight due to his cleaner landing shots and his better defense. However, Dirrell blew his chance by moving and clinching too much in the fight. Dirrell has a good chance of beating Abraham in his next fight in April, because he’s a lot quicker than Abraham and will likely be able to hit him enough to get a decision. The fight will be held in the United States, which further increases Dirrell’s chance of beating Abraham by decision. If the fight were to take place in Germany, it would likely take some very special from Dirrell to get a win over there. Never the less, I can see Dirrell beating Abraham next. However, I think Dirrell will have huge problems in his final fight of the group stage competition against Ward. I think Ward will be too tough for him and end up beating Dirrell by decision. That’s not because Ward has the better skills or the quicker hands. It’s just that Ward will be willing to take shots to throw his own, and will end up outworking Dirrell. If Dirrell loses his final fight, this will give him a record of 1-2, the exact same record as Froch. However, with Froch’s previous win over Dirrell, Froch will continue on in the tournament, while Dirrell ends up being eliminated.

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