By Jon Neale: When first announced the Super Six Tournament was a breath of fresh air to the Boxing world. To this day I think the theory behind the tournament is sound and the idea of the ‘best fighting the best’ is something almost completely Alien to most of the Boxing Fraternity in this day and age. Forget the fact that we have experienced fighters dropping like flies, contentious decisions, arguments about home and away advantages and illegal shots being thrown during the climactic rounds of a fight… Essentially this tournament makes sure a divisions crème-de-la-crème engage in combat against one and other in order to ascertain who is the ‘daddy’ of the weight class. That is unheard of and gives boxing a shot of regaining its position as the number one Combat Sport on the Market!

Not that my opinion (or the fact that I have no influence over any professional Boxing fight anywhere in the world) makes a difference but, were there to be another similar tournament a way to reduce the deafening objections and protestations of fans and boxing camps alike would be to implement a few basic changes to ensure continuity and fairness wherever possible. The fighters involved already have plenty to prepare for so to have to get involved in venue bidding wars and to be included in the process of referee and judge selection seems ridiculous. If a Fighter is invited (and I stress ‘invited’) to be involved in such an event in the future it should be under the proviso that he understands all venues, dates for fights and referee and judges are set in stone before the competition begins. In the same way that other sports handle tournament affairs there should be a select few judges involved in all fights.

These judges should then be selected (blindly) by an independent adjudicator and likewise regarding pre-selected referees and venues. Then you have the opportunity to promote and market the future fight dates and only need wait to see who the Boxers involved will be once the preliminary fights are taken care of… By doing this and rolling out a generic manageable process for the Tournament before it begins then all fighters are given a ‘fair crack of the whip’. Any Champion (and all competing are Champions) should be able to fight at home or away from home.

A simple plan I hope you agree! One that will NEVER see the light of day, however, I am an eternal optimist… after this perhaps we can get Lennox Lewis out of retirement to fight Vitali and then Joe Calzaghe to fight the winner of the Super Six!