By Scott Gilfoid: It appears that former WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (28-2, 20 KO’s) doesn’t have a lot of choices for his next fight sometime in April or May. Froch, 34, had been hoping to get a tasty fight against IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (29-0, 24 KO’s) and even went so far as to start negotiations with him.

However, Showtime television in the United States is reportedly not enthused with televising a fight between the recently beaten Froch and the undefeated Bute. Showtime prefers to see Bute facing Bernard Hopkins or Andre Ward. Froch is lower on their list because of how bad he looked in losing a 12 round decision against WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward, who was able to dominate Froch using mostly just his right hand and left hand that was broken in two places.

So, the Froch-Bute fight is likely not going to happen next, and Froch’s second choice opponent, Mikkel Kessler, is busy fighting WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz on April 14th in Denmark. That takes away Bute and Kessler’s name from Froch’s list. Froch hasn’t shown any interest in fighting WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly, who badly wants to fight him. It’s a fight that would make Froch a lot of money but I guess he doesn’t like the idea of being the main guy drawing most of the attention in that fight.

Froch wants his next fight to take place in his home city of Nottingham, so that means that the talented brother due of Andre Dirrell and Anthony Dirrell are out as potential Froch opponents because no way will they fly to Nottingham and take their chances with the judges in trying to beat Froch over there. Andre already said he’s interested in fighting Froch as long as it’s in a neutral venue and not in Nottingham again.

Dirrell already lost a very controversial decision to Froch in Nottingham in 2009 in the Super Six tournament and he doesn’t want to go there a second time and risk losing another questionable decision. I really don’t think Froch is too high on fighting Andre a second time because of how fast is and how much he’s improved since he last fought Froch.

Andre is sitting down on his punches now and with his amazing hand speed, he’s a one punch knockout threat. I also doubt Froch will want anything to do with Andre’s hard hitting undefeated brother Anthony Dirrell, because he does everything that Andre does but with more power. If you remember how Andre had Froch staggering in the 10th round in their fight in 2009. Well, Anthony Dirrell would likely have Froch staggering in the first two rounds and once Anthony gets someone hurt, he finishes them off with pinpoint shots.

Froch is probably going to have to settle for facing an obscure opponent in his next fight. There’s really no one available unless he wants to fight the Dirrell brothers and risk getting knocked out.