By Simon Hirst: Tonight is the first semi final in what should be have been the exciting semi final pitting two of the top super middleweights against each other in a fight that should not be missed. However, it has turned into a predictable bout between possibly the best super middleweight in the division and a limited, exposed fighter who is good, but perhaps not in the league of the elite like he was at middleweight level.

Andre Ward has emerged as one of the toughest, talented fighters of the division with a stunning win over a much favoured Mikkel Kessler. Since then, Ward has notched up wins in the tournament with a shutout over Allan Green and beat a tough Sakio Bika outside the tournament.

Abraham entered the tournament with no super middleweight experience except for a couple of wins when finding his feet in professional boxing and a fight with Edison Miranda. After knocking out a Jermain Taylor past his peak, everyone all felt Abraham was the real deal. However, Dirrell exposed Abraham as the limited fighter some had questioned, although a late rally helped his case in which Abraham started to fight with more urgency, before the infamous ending. A second loss to Carl Froch was emphatic and the real exposer. In what was labelled a 50-50, Froch boxed superbly, much to everyone’s shock and scored a shutout win.

Abraham goes into the fight on the back of them two losses and a quick stay busy fight that ended unfortunately in two rounds. It is hard to imagine how confident Abraham is going into the fight, one because of the nature of his losses and two because Abraham is quite a private person. Ward must be confident, having not lost a fight in his pro career, let alone the tournament and provided he is not drawn into a 50-50 scrap, he should be able to beat Abraham.

It is hard to imagine a Ward loss. Ward’s only real failure is his style. He isn’t the most eye pleasing of fighters to watch and the tournament hasn’t really helped him extend his fan base too broadly. I believe to try and capture the public’s imagination; he is in the ring with the perfect opponent. Abraham is not in the best shape of mind coming into this bout, with reports of a camp dispute in his previous loss, Ward needs to take advantage with a convincing, well calculated stoppage. Control the fight against his slower, limited fighter, drain his confidence and force the stoppage. A stoppage is the only thing missing of his record in this tournament, as the Kessler fight was stopped and labelled a Technical Decision.

The style of the tournament has seen the tournament turn into a bit of a farce, with matches taking longer to put together 19 months ago, it roughly averages out at a fight every six months. For the tournament to work, the fights need to be put together beforehand, locations and pay set in tone to stop dispute. The fans really wanted a Dirrell-Ward fight, but politics got in the way. The fact the fighters knew beforehand they would meet, to deny the fans of a fight they wanted should have been punished with greater force.

The tournament style is an excellent way of getting the best who want to fight each other to do that, as demonstrated by the Showtime Bantamweight tournament. Unfortunately, the final didn’t happen (yet), but it got the fans excited with the ability of the four fights, with them all being good close fights. The fights were relatively close which kept the attention of the fans.

We are now in the position of a semi final match for the tournament in a fight which seems to be relatively easy to predict. It doesn’t exactly inspire confidence or a reason not to miss the fight, but let’s hope the fighters put on a good competitive fight which entertains the fans. The organizers should be credited for their bravery and idea of tournament fighting, but learn from the mistakes, rectify them and revamped version could be a hit.