By Scott Gilfoid: Tickets will start going on sale next week on August 28th for IBF super middleweight champion Carl Froch’s first title defense of his International Boxing Federation belt at the Capital FM Arena, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, UK. Oddly enough, the tickets will go on sale the same day that Froch’s promoter Eddie Hearn will be announcing who Froch’s opponent will be for the November 17th date.

So what does that tell you? I know what it tells me. It gives me the impression that there’s a lot of scrambling around being done at the last second to try and find a suitable opponent that won’t turn boxing fans off in a big way. One of the things that Froch has always prided himself on is not taking the easy fights and only facing guys that are a real test.

Well, if Froch takes a softy for his next fight it’s going to make him look like he’s going along with what other fighters do. Heck, I wouldn’t blame Froch for take an easy fight at this juncture. If his promoter isn’t going to come up with the bank to get a talent like Thomas Oosthuizen or some other star to come all the way to Nottingham, England to fight him, then Froch might as well join in with other fighters and take a nice soft opponent that has no chance of beating him.

Look what Froch has to lose if he fights someone good like Oosthuizen. If Froch loses that fight, which is a real possibility, then he can forget all about fighting rematches against IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute and Mikkel Kessler. Will I respect Froch if he takes a soft opponent. No. I won’t have any respect for him if he does that, but I would understand why he might want to do it.

Oosthuizen or someone like Sakio Bika, would have an excellent chance of beating Froch in front of his own fans in Nottingham. A loss for Froch means the big cash that he would get in the Bute and Kessler fights would be gone. Froch would be right back where he started from before he fought Bute in his last fight in which he was coming off a loss and was in a situation where his career was on the line for that fight. So, I can understand why Froch might not want to take a dangerous opponent right now, because he might end up losing out on his other fights.