Though it came with no fanfare compared to previous tournaments, the World Boxing Super Series announced the full roster, seeding and quarterfinal matches for its second cruiserweight tournament.
The WBSS announced on Twitter all eight participants for the sequel to the first cruiserweight tournament, which saw Oleksandr Usyk defeat Murat Gassiev to become the undisputed WBA, WBO, WBC, IBF and Ring Magazine cruiserweight champion.
Here are the first round matches, which features a mix between returning fighters and new faces, for the WBSS: Cruiserweights 2 tournament:
- No. 1 Seed Mairis Briedis vs. Noel Mikaelian
- No. 2 Seed Yunier Dorticos vs. Mateusz Masternak
- No. 3 Seed Krzysztof Glowacki vs. Maksim Vlasov
- No. 4 Seed Ruslan Fayfer vs. Andrew Tabiti
Of the eight fighters in this tournament, only Briedis, Dorticos and Glowacki are the ones who fought in the first WBSS cruiserweight tournament. Briedis and Dorticos reached the semifinals as world champions but they were dethroned by Usyk and Murat Gassiev, respectively.
There are no world champions on this edition of the WBSS cruiserweight tournament as Usyk still holds all five major world titles. Usyk is currently negotiating a fight against former champion Tony Bellew for later this year, but beyond that, Usyk's plans as the undisputed champion are unknown. If Usyk moves up in weight after the fight against Bellew, should Usyk be victorious, all the titles would be vacated. If that is the case, then it is possible the cruiserweight semifinals or finals could be for at least one of the vacant titles.
The cruiserweights join the bantamweight and junior welterweight tournaments as the second season of the WBSS. No dates for the first-round cruiserweight tournaments have been announced yet.
