By Sean McDaniel: Former IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan advised former WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch that if he wanted to have any luck against WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward in their Super Six tournament final bout, Froch would have to get off to a really quick start by taking it to Ward from the very get go.

Instead of listening to Khan’s valuable advice, Froch fiddled around for eight rounds, trying to box and only putting a partial half-hearted effort into attacking Ward in any real way. By the time that Froch finally put his offense into overdrive in the 9th round, he was hopelessly behind and in need of a knockout to win. Ward got on his bike and was able to avoid enough of Froch’s big shots in the last four rounds to conserve the victory.

Khan was reportedly complimentary of Ward’s fighting strategy by moving and getting in close to Froch to smother his offense. Khan saw both fighters as having fought well for the most part. He obviously was disappointed that Froch failed to listen to his recommendations for how to fight Ward, because Froch waited too long before he finally started to pressure Ward in any meaningful way. It would have been interesting to see how Froch would have done had he followed Khan’s game plan by going after Ward and turning it into a brutal war from round one. Maybe Froch would have run out of gas or maybe he could have worn Ward down and nicked a decision. We’ll never truly know now because Froch didn’t fight the right fight.