Back in March when Richard Schaefer and Kalle Sauerland announced they would be holding a pair of eight man tournaments named the World Boxing Super series with a grand total of a $50 million purse, I was skeptical that this would ever see fruition. They are still pushing forward, however, and it seems like it will actually happen. Today they announced the divisions, cruiserweight and super middleweight. Fighters have until the end of May to apply and selections will be announced in July.
Apparently the initial plan was to do junior middleweight and super middleweight, but they changed up the plan to cruiserweight instead. I am glad they did as cruiserweight is a very deep division that could actually field a sixteen deep tournament, but eight is more than plenty. Super middleweight isn’t as deep as cruiserweight, but it is definitely deep enough to put together a great eight fighter tourney should top fighters actually apply.
They really might apply too given the money at stake. With some quick napkin math, two eight man tournaments will take fourteen fights to complete. That means twenty eight purses to be paid. Fifty million divided over twenty eight purses is 1.7 million dollars per fighter per bout on average. They probably start smaller and scale up for the winners, but I am just guessing here. Either way, the money will be more than most fighters, especially the cruiserweights, can otherwise make. Winners will also receive the Ali Cup as pictured above, but something tells me they care more for the money.
The schedule for the tournament will be the following: Fighters announced in July. The committee will seed the top four fighters who will then choose their opponents from the other four. The first round will be in September, the semi-finals in “early 2018,” and the finals in May of 2018. That is a fast paced schedule that will ask fighters to be willing and able to fight up to three top opponents in nine months. Whether or not the money is enough for top fighters to apply remains to be seen.
