Say what you will about the foul-filled, nut-busting finale of Showtime's Bantamweight tournament last weekend, but outside of the conspiracy theories regarding a payoff of incompetent referee Russell Mora or the Golota-like tactics of Abner Mares, it was a good fight that concluded yet another intriguing tournament on the Showtime network. The controversial ending is a blessing in disguise as the outcry for a rematch between Mares and Joseph Agbeko may not have come otherwise and it has established the initially less-known Agbeko and Mares as marketable and exciting fighters. Showtime, who has been fantastic in bringing light to the obscure weight classes, now has two more fighters that can bring the network and boxing great fights.
Whoever wins Agbeko-Mares II will be a shoe-in as the next logical opponent for "The Filipino Flash" Nonito Donaire. And who wouldn't want to watch a rematch with either men against all-action Vic Darchinyan, who also competed in the tournament? That's the beauty of what Showtime is doing. They are creating marketable fighters and making us want to watch them without depending on uncooperative promoters or managers.
I've been an advocate of the tournament formula for a while now and I think that it is the quickest and most efficient way to generate excitement for a fight; and nobody is in more dire need for better fights than HBO. Boxing's biggest network has a much bigger budget than Showtime, yet constantly blows it on awful fights. Their basis for approving fights is head-scratching, at best. Let's use Sergio Martinez as an example. HBO can't seem to find an opponent for him at all, resorting to no-hopers like Darren Barker, having no way of getting Top Rank-controlled Miguel Cotto to fight him, which is what Martinez has been hoping for. Guys like Peter Quillin, WBO champion Dmitry Pirog, Matthew Macklin and Sebastian Zbik have called out Martinez, but won't get a fight with him because they aren't household names, despite their reputation as fan-friendly fighters.
With a two-fight tournament just like Showtime did, the winner could come out as a legitimate and recognizable opponent for Martinez after getting a good amount of exposure. One night, you'd have a double-header with Quillin vs. Zbik and Macklin vs. Pirog. The winners could fight on the undercard of a Martinez fight, and just like that, a credible and intriguing fight is born. This formula can be reproduced to success in ANY division. It's short and sweet, getting immediate results for fight fans and the networks. This shouldn't be a difficult idea to implement now that Al Haymon's neophyte Ross Greenburg has been exiled from his Presidency of HBO Sports.
A longer tournament can also be done, but as we've seen in the Super Six, the longer it goes, the harder it is to maintain, but the payoff is that much bigger in the end. The winner of the Super Six finale between Carl Froch and Andre Ward will be a top pound-for-pound fighter who in three years fought the best fighters that the 168-pound division has to offer, something that isn't done anymore thanks to the unwillingness of promoters to take risks. Whatever the result, Ward and Froch are bigger stars now than they ever would have been had they not have participated in the tournament.
The door is open for this opportunity and there is no better way to get people excited about boxing again than to make these great fights on a consistent basis, and build for bigger fights down the road. Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao are not going to be around for much longer, nor will there be anymore legitimate challengers to them should they continue fighting at the rate they have been, and once they fight each other, it's adios unless a rematch is in order. When the internal mess gets taken care of in HBO, it's time for them to take a chance to re-invent themselves as the #1 boxing network. The best way to do it is to take a page from the network that's doing it right.
Danny Howard can be reached via e-mail (dhoward@fighthype.com), Twitter (@DBHoward126) and is looking for friends on Facebook.