Boxing's Top Super Middleweights
Boxing's super middleweight division is currently in the middle of its “Super Six World Boxing Classic” designed to unify the WBA and WBC title within the division. It also will create some compelling fights throughout the next two years as six of the best fighters in the world will fight against each other, ending with a championship fight in 2011.
While it sounds great on paper, there's just one problem: the fighter ranked at the top of the division by The Ring is not part of the tournament, keeping him from taking on some of the other top names in the division. Here are the champions of the super middleweight division along with some other compelling fighters within the weight class.
Lucian Bute (26-0, 21 KOs): Now living in Canada, the 30-year-old Romanian native his held the IBF super middleweight title since he stopped Alejandro Berrio in the 11th round in Montreal on October 19, 2007. Despite being the challenger, Bute was the heavy favorite coming into the fight and he didn't disappoint a capacity crowd in his adopted hometown, landed a barrage of punches on a cornered Berrio in the 11th before the fight was stopped. He has defended the title five times since then, most recently stopping hard-punching Edison Miranda on April 17.
Andre Ward (21-0, 13 KOs): One of two American Olympic medalists near the top of the division, Ward won the gold medal as a light heavyweight in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens – becoming the first American to win a gold medal in boxing in eight years. He won professional debut in December 2004 when he stopped Chris Molina in two rounds. He won the WBA super middleweight title on November 21, 2009 when he defeated Mikkel Kessler on points after the fight was stopped in the 11th round because of cuts to Kessler caused by unintentional head butts.
Mikkel Kessler (43-2, 32 KOs): The Danish fighter rebounded from his loss to Ward in the fist round of the Super Six tournament by claiming the WBC version of the title in his next fight on April 24 when he scored a unanimous decision victory over Carl Froch in front of a hometown crowd in Denmark. His next in the tournament will be a title defense against Allan Green tentatively scheduled for September 25.
Robert Stieglitz (38-2, 23 KOs): Along with Bute, the WBO champion Stieglitz is one of two world champions not participating in the Super Six tournament. The 28-year-old German is certainly the least respected of the major title holders – his highest profile fight before becoming champion was a loss to Librado Andrade when he was stopped in the eighth round in early 2008. However, he responded to that setback and won the WBO title with a split decision victory over Lukas Wilaschek in Austria on December 9, 2008.
Andre Dirrell (19-1, 13 KOs): Dirrell was Ward's teammate on the 2004 Olympic team – he won a bronze at middleweight while Ward won gold. The two fighters are scheduled to face each other in the final “group stage” fight of the Super Six tournament in what is perhaps the most anticipated fight of the entire tournament. Direll's only loss came to Carl Froch in a split decision last October.
Arthur Abraham (31-1, 25 KOs): The German fighter of Armenian descent moved up to super middleweight from middleweight and abandoned his IBF crown in order to compete in the Super Six tournament after he was unable to secure a major fight against Kelly Pavlik. Abraham's last fight ended in controversy – trailing Andre Dirrell in the 11th round of their fight on March 23 in Detroit, Abraham knocked Dirrell down but was disqualified for striking Dirrell while he was on one knee. Earlier in the tournament, Abraham delivered a devastating 12th round knockout of Jermain Taylor in a fight that he dominated throughout.
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