Whatever happened to the "Super 6" format?

Has boxing in the modern day ever had something that so clearly pulled a division together? You had 6 (actually 8 in the end with replacements) of the best in the division all contracted to fight each other - one man emerged as the clear best: Andre Ward. Nullifying Froch in the final who laboured his way there losing to Kessler (a fight he would later gain revenge on).

I don't think this is done often enough. I understand that there are contracts here there and everywhere and maybe it was a unique time for boxing and a lucky grab of the division where nobody was specifically contracted so Showtime bounced in. I think things like this help the sport massively. I mean you've got a format that allows the man to beat the man. Bute and the IBF aside (Froch proved why he wouldn't have been any good in it anyway) all the titles were on the line.

Can you imagine what a heavyweight one would look like?

Wilder
Klitschko
Joshua
Browne
Parker
Ortiz (?)

It'd be spectacular in my opinion. But then it could go through into other divisions. Personally, I'd think Welter would be really tasty:

Brook
Thurman
Pacquaio
Mayweather
Khan
Vargas/Bradley

Thoughts? Anyone not particularly like it?

Mayweather wins every fight and so does Joshua.

It will be too hard to organise. Rival promoters, rival channels, big ego's.

Super 6 was great. But as has already been mentioned, promoters are in the way. It's ironic isn't it, we have these people in the sport who are there to 'promote' it, yet actually prove time and again to be the biggest stumbling block in making the fights the fans actually want to see.

I' love to see some sort of reform in boxing where we have an over arching world governing body, that have absolutely no conflicting interests. And they actually run the show.

I'd like to see something like unifications being built into the exisiting set up as a mandatory requirement. Let all the organisations have their title holders so they can keep making their money, but every two years a unifaction fight / tournament must occur to determine the number one in the whole division and create a genuine 'super champion'. Similar to where the ring magazine title holder is normally recognised as the number one, only this is official. The fights we would get, mouth watering!

it's a great format, and give the fighters involved the chance to create a great legacy- look the respects Froch's record gets him, without the super 6 I very much doubt that his promoters would have been able to secure those names, and he'd end up with a bunch of C rated fighters like Bika on his resume instead.The sad thing is that pretty much as soon as the tournament ended the belts got divided up again.

injuries are also an issue I suppose. Didn't the Super Six eventually become Super Eight or something?

Great as it was to see good match ups, the format itself was always likely to be a bit flawed for me. It's not like a tennis round robin. A guy loses a boxing match, it very often has an effect on his future performances. It dragged on a bit, not helped by dropouts and injuries.

The WBA tournament to find a replacement for Ali in the late 60's was 8 fighters, in a knockout tournament. Fewer fights, but maybe less likelihood of injuries and drop outs etc.

Just as unlikely to happen too!

Maybe the downside to any such tournament is at its completion, the winner has cleaned up and doesn't really have anyone left to fight, unless some new stars have emerged in the interim.

I liked the tournament in the 80's that crowned Tyson as the undisputed heavyweight champ. But I always thought that it only happened because Don King and HBO knew that they had a new star in Mike Tyson.

I can't remember it having a format, just a series of match ups and unifications that ended when Tyson decisioned Tucker. Tyson won the 'linear title' after he beat Spinks who didn't participate in the tournament.

Speaking of Tyson, I see that it's 30 years ago today, that Tyson beat Berbick to become WBC champ.

http://www.skysports.com/boxing/news/12183/10667409/mike-tyson-made-history-on-november-22-1986-as-the-youngest-ever-world-heavyweight-champion