By Scott Gilfoid: WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly’s promoter Frank Warren is hoping that IBF super middleweight champion Carl Froch (30-2, 22 KO’s) will step up in weight and face his fighter in the new. Warren thinks a match between Cleverly and Froch would be a great fight and he’s hoping Froch will change his mind and choose to fight Cleverly.
Warren said to thesun.co.uk “That’s [Froch vs. Mikkel Kessler] a decent match, but a far better one would be for The Cobra to step up to 175lbs to challenge Cleverly. My guess is he’ll swerve the challenge.”
I’d say that’s a good guess on Warren’s part. For some reason, Froch wants no part of the Cleverly fight even though it makes all kinds of sense in terms of drawing a lot of fans in the UK, and making money. When I see Froch facing fighters like Yusaf Mack, who had to boil down from 175 to fight Froch at 168 without a catchweight, I just get the feeling that Froch maybe afraid to fight Cleverly.
I guess it’s a bad match-up for Froch because he’ll likely have problems keeping up with Cleverly’s high work rate and maybe end up getting spanked. Getting spanked by the likes of Andre Ward and Mikkel Kessler is a much different thing than getting spanked by a fighter like Cleverly, because those guys are established world class fighters that are known all around the world, whereas Cleverly is pretty much known only in the UK and his opposition thus far has been dreadful for much of his career.
Still, I don’t understand how Froch can fight a guy like Mack and then not take a fight against a much, much better known fighter – at least in terms of the UK fans – in Cleverly. It just looks like Froch is ducking the fight and that’s disappointing if that’s the case.
You hate to see Froch ducking a guy that hasn’t even established himself as a good fighter yet. Cleverly hold the World Boxing Organization 175 pound strap but he’s fought only one halfway decent fighter during his career in Tony Bellew.
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