Froch hoping the Super Middleweight Tourney Makes Him a Star
July 17th, 2009
By William Mackay: WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (25-0, 20 KO’s) has sat on the sidelines much of his career watching fighters like WBO super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe hog all the glory in the UK despite facing less than impressive foes through most of his career. Froch, a no nonsense type of guy who doesn’t believe in taking the halfway approach to his career, was turned off by what he was seeing and vowed that he would direct his career in a different way by taking the toughest fights possible, even if it meant facing tough odds like when he came to the United States to fight Jermain Taylor in April.
Froch’s risk taking paid off for him in that case with a 12th round TKO win that’s done wonders for Froch’s career. Keeping with that tradition, Froch immediately agreed to fight in Showtime’s six-man tournament when he was approached recently to participate.
The fighters in the tournament – Arthur Abraham, Andre Dirrell, Andre Ward, Mikkel Kessler and Jermain Taylor – are among the best fighters in all of boxing. Froch, 32, will be faced with fighting the young 26-year-old Dirrell in his first fight, a very tough opponent with a lot of speed and power.
Froch will have to find a way to get past him and two other fighters in order to make it to the 2nd round of competition. It won’t be easy for Froch, because he’s probably the slowest of the participants in terms of hand speed, so he’s going to need to try and use his power, pressure and his chin to try and get past the quicker fighters.
Froch isn’t a stranger to fighting opponents with fast hand speed, beating both Jean Pascal and Jermain Taylor in back to back fights recently. Froch had problems early against both of them and was behind in the fights going into the second half.
However, Froch’s power and constant pressure wore both Pascal and Taylor down as the fight went into the later rounds. What started out to be a mismatch ended up with Froch taking the fight to the quicker Taylor and Pascal, eventually beating both of them.
If Froch can get by the likes of Dirrell, Ward, Abraham and Kessler, Carl feels that he will have put himself in the position to become the next big star in the sport. If he can come out the winner of the tournament, Froch believes that he will have accomplished more in his career than Calzaghe did. I think there would be a lot of people in agreement with Froch about that.
While Calzaghe did have a nice career, he faced only a small handful of fighters – Bernard Hopkins, Kessler and Jeff Lacy – not the sheer number of talented fighters that are participating in the Showtime tournament. However, Froch isn’t the name that boxing fans and experts are mentioning as to who the likely winner of the tournament will be, unfortunately. Most people are in agreement that either Kessler or Ward will come out the winner in the tournament, so Froch has his work cut out for him.
Tags: 18 Responses to “Froch hoping the Super Middleweight Tourney Makes Him a Star”
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kessler will win hands down and i hope afterwards all those anti calzaghes will shut up and appreciate how good joe really was/is.
I hope froch does better than I think he will, but my money will go on Kessler. For the record, Joe Calzaghe knew his boxing and beat everyone with a just a slap.
Can’t see Dirrel or ward doing anything, it should be Bute & Pavlic. Taylor is still top class though after schooling Froch, however, he did lose to froch and because of that I question why he is in the tournament. It’s the second chance saloon! or maybe I just don’t want to see three Yanks who are all stay at home fighters with no titles in a tornament of champions.
From the top; Kessler, Taylor, Abraham or froch, ward, Dirrel.
think its october sometime,be good tv if they on sky
wen is this staring
hahahahahahaha,never mind what froch ,what u been smoking Oli?Froch worse one in it,you really reckon he’d beat kessler?Must be some strong stuff Oli Oli Oli
Froch will smoke everyone. The only thing worrying me bout this tournament is…after it is over what fights will be left to have?
mke him a star,he’ll be seeing stars more like it,froch the least taleneted guy in there,very slow and methodical.I seriously doubt he’d beat taylor a 2nd time.I give him credit for going in for this but he aint as good as he seems to think he is
i like froch but feel that kessler will clean up the tournament.
Yes the 12th round shillacking.But what about the other 11 rounds if taylor was fitter he would be world champ?Froch is far from world class you need more than a good chin to compete at world level.He got flattened by a blown up middle weight so i do question if he has actualy got a world class chin.Froch wont be champ for very long you will all see soon
froch is already a star son!!!!! you must of seen the 12th rnd shillacking he gave taylor,the cobra will win this tournamount and then move up to put old big mouth hopkins into perminent retirement.
Froch will be exposed in this tournement.Any fighter thats half decent froch has struggled with.Brian Magee gave froch problems aswell as pascal and taylor gave him problems.Im british and im a froch fan im not biast but carl will never be a JOE CALZAGHE.Carl i hope your getting paid a lot of money because your career will be very short so cash in whilst you can.Kessler will win hands down
This super 6 will be amazing, Full respect to each of them . . .Amir Khan should take a leaf from these guys’s books & stop ducking EVERYONE who can punch. I hope Froch can do it but I have a feeling Abraham will shock.
Ward and Dirrell are the least experienced out of the group put together, But that doesnt mean they are out of their depth.
The more i read about this whole tournement the more excited i get about it. I was very dubious and not too happy at 1st thinking why does it need to happen like this, these fighters should be pitted together under normal circumstances. But clearly Boxing is in a state where these fights, as much as they should, dont happen.
Im a Brit, Im a Froch fan but im honest, I think he felt he was held back when the likes of Calzaghe was gettin all the British attention and now hes retired Carl has been cut free to make his own statements. And boy is he goin for it.
Taking on Taylor on American soil when Froch was the champ shows EXACTLY the boxing spirit that all boxers should have, to beat Taylor then go chasing Kessler and Bute and offering to fight them anytime anywhere shows true heart, grit and AMBITION. something boxing is seriously lacking right now.
But then at the same tim i think Froch overestemates himself. Hes a big puncher and has a decent chin, and his skills are better than we saw against Taylor and Pascal but to be honest he did look a little out of his depth against Taylor and was lucky that Jermain fades as much as he does.
I suppose styles make fights and Taylors style is the more flamboyant and was never guna make Froch look good and i dont believe any other names in this tournement fght quite like Taylor but they are all guna be equally hard in different ways.
froch is only going to get better hes gonna do it come on froch!!!
Nobody is in agreement that Ward is likely to come out on top! He and DIrrell are only in the tournament as they’re yanks and showtime need yanks involved for obvious reasons.
Swapping these two untested contenders for Bute & Pavlic would have been amazing.
I personally would favour AA over Ward but this is only if his punch output increases (people seem to think starving himself caused the few punches he threw). Ward is very good though but he is in a similair situation to Ortiz was. He hasen’t faced to much competition really in his career and there’s no telling how he will react to pressure (excluding Miranda’s swing and miss pressure).