By Scott Gilfoid: It’s still unknown if former WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch will sign for a two-fight deal against IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute. A week ago TVA Sports revealed that Showtime wasn’t interested in airing a fight between Froch and Bute.

Instead, Showtime prefers to televise a bout between Bute and 47-year-old WBC light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins or Bute vs. WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward. Showtime likes both of those fights and it’s not hard to see why.

Hopkins and Ward are both winning, whereas Froch was just soundly beaten by Ward in a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision fight last December. Showtime is interested in putting on what they feel will be competitive and exciting fights for Americans to watch.

Froch unfortunately didn’t live up to those high standards in his last fight, so it looks as if he may be rejected as an opponent for Bute. Showtime is paying to televise Bute’s next fight.

So where does this leave Froch? He could still sign to fight Bute but the fight might be shown on Showtime. This would mean less money, but the fight would still make money from the gate and the UK money for Froch.

Froch will have a long wait to get his hoped for a fight against Mikkel Kessler in 2012, as Kessler is already scheduled to fight WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz on April 14th and won’t be available to fight Froch until at least August at the earliest. Froch isn’t just going to sit back and do nothing.

Here are some of my choices for Froch’s next fight:

Andre Dirrell
Nathan Cleverly
Anthony Dirrell
George Groves
James DeGale
Kelly Pavlik
Chad Dawson
Sakio Bika
Peter Quillin
Jean Pascal

I have a feeling that Froch won’t choose to fight any of these guys next, but he really should. The Dirrell brothers are obviously the best choices for Froch because of their talent but I can’t see Froch willing to take that risk of getting schooled.

Froch seems to be nostalgic for his win over Pascal, and I can see him trying like mad to get this fight. Pascal is basically a four round fighter and Froch can beat this guy again.