By James Slater: A 154-pound Super Six? Well, not exactly, but Golden Boy president Oscar De La Hoya has shared with Ring.tv his idea for an eight-man tourney that would feature some of the top names at light-middleweight, and Oscar says he’d like to have the tournament fought and wrapped up significantly quicker than it took for the Showtime Boxing Classic to reach its conclusion.
The Super Six was a great idea and event, yet the one drawback was the two full years it took for Andre Ward to be crowned the winner. De La Hoya envisages a thrilling tourney that would last just a few months.
“Why not do an eight-man tournament in a shorter period of time,” Oscar said to Ring. “Why not have three or even four fights in one night and make it a single elimination tournament in a shorter amount of time. It doesn’t have to last a year or two years. You can make it a single elimination, and this tournament can last just a few months.”
There is a long way to go before De La Hoya can get his brainchild off the ground, and Oscar says he will sit down with his match-makers and see which Golden Boy fighters might make for great entrants into the tourney. But the names Oscar has spoken about off the top of his head make for a quite mouth-watering scenario!
“Bundrage, Trout, Lara, Canelo, Cotto, Kirkland, Angulo making a comeback. S**t, I might throw myself into the mix,” The Golden Boy said.
Oscar was joking when he spoke of fighting in the tournament himself (at least I hope he was), but the great idea he is working on is no joke whatsoever. The seven top names De La Hoya mentioned (plus one more fighter) going at one another in a knockout tournament? What’s not to like?
Now, can De La Hoya and his team make it happen? The people who brought you The Super Six will tell you all about the numerous headaches they encountered when putting their show on the road. However, to see sluggers like Kirkland and Angulo, and classy boxers like Alvarez and Cotto, and Lara and Trout going at it, the hard work of putting together such a tournament would sure be worth it: for the promoters, for the fighters themselves and above all for the paying fans.