Arum: "I only will put Donaire and Montiel in an 8-man single-elimination tourney"
From Dan Rafael's 'QUICK HITS' column:
Originally posted by Dan Rafael
Arum also told ESPN.com that if Cotto-Chavez is finalized, he's considering a bantamweight showdown between unified beltholder Fernando Montiel and Nonito Donaire as the pay-per-view co-feature. "We might double those fights up and make it a real good card," said Arum, who has been talking about Montiel-Donaire for months. Neither will enter Showtime's proposed 118-pound tournament. Arum said one of the reasons was because he wanted to see it as an eight-man, single-elimination tournament, not a six-man, round-robin event like the Super Six that Showtime is currently doing at super middleweight. "Make it an eight-man tournament, loser goes home," Arum said. "Then we're interested. But don't stretch it out for [18 months]. We have faith in our guys. We'll put them in, and it's three fights to win it. I'm not going to get involved in that Super Six stuff. Loser goes home and it's a different story." Arum said a second option for Montiel-Donaire is to put it on the Manny Pacquiao-Antonio Margarito undercard Nov. 13.
maybe he doesn't want his fighters to face the style that beats them?
just look at arthur Abraham for example,
he did great against Taylor, and was quickly the favorite to win the tourney
then comes Dirrell (who lost his last fight) and fucks **** up
i think you hit it right on the money. arum will setup the matches very carefully, and that will give the highest chance of montiel and donaire in the finals.
I think it is Arum just protecting his fighters careers and future. I mean if one of his guys suffers a devastating loss, the last thing you would want to do is throw them right back in with the sharks again. A fighter coming off something like a bad knockout loss needs time to mentally recover, not just physical.
To me, it is a sign that he cares about his fighters.
Now if they set it up so any fighter knocked out was eliminated from the tourney, but decision losses were allowed to continue, I bet he would agree.
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