Froch is doomed to lose to Ward without an inside game

By Boxing News - 10/25/2011 - Comments

Image: Froch is doomed to lose to Ward without an inside gameBy Scott Gilfoid: WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (28-1, 20 KO’s) is outgunned in his Super Six finals bout against WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (24-0, 13 KO’s) on December 17th at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. No matter how you look at it, Froch doesn’t have the skills in the appropriate areas to win.

Here’s how I see it:

Outside game: Ward has the better skills on the outside because of his strong jab and quick lead right hand. Froch doesn’t have anywhere close to the same kind of hand speed and to make up for his lack of speed he keeps his arms out in front of him so that he can throw arm punches. Froch uses the same strategy that heavyweight Vitali Klitschko utilizes to make up for his slow hands.

Inside game: This is clearly an area where Ward is much better than Froch. Ward’s inside fighting ability is on par with Bernard Hopkins. Froch is kind of limited to holding and hitting while on the inside. I’ve never seen Froch do much on the inside other than hold, hit and throw love taps to the back of his opponents’ head from time to time while in a clinch.

Hand speed: Ward is so much quicker than Froch that this area isn’t even worth discussing. It’s academic that Ward is the much faster fighter.

Power: I see this as an area where both fighters are tied. While Froch can throw hard at times, Ward is more dangerous in my view because he not only punches hard but he throws with much better hand speed.

I would give Froch a chance in this fight if he could learn some inside fighting skills but he doesn’t have much time. It takes too long to learn how to fight on the inside good enough to compete against a world class athlete like Ward. Froch simply doesn’t have enough time to learn. If he was with a great trainer who’s focus was teaching him how to throw to the body, I think Froch could be a decent body puncher in two or three years. The problem is Froch only has less than two months to learn and that’s not enough time. Froch is going to lose I hate to say and lose badly.



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