Groves: I’m going to bash Froch up, maybe retire him

By Boxing News - 10/24/2013 - Comments

groves73By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten George Groves (19-0, 15 KO’s) expects to give IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch (31-2, 22 KO’s) such a beating next month in their fight on November 23rd that Froch may end up retiring from the beating. Groves doesn’t just want to take Froch’s scalp and add his two straps to his college, but he also wants to give Froch a beating in the fight in the process. Groves sees Froch as an aging fighter and he sees his own job as replacing the old with the young.

Groves said to Sky Sports “He [Froch] has a superiority complex. In boxing it’s good when you’re at the top. It’s not so good when you have a young and up and coming fighter who’s going to beat you real soon. At some point the realization is going to sink in that I’m not just a serious threat, I’m going to bash him up, take his titles and probably end up retiring him.”

Normally I wouldn’t think of Froch retiring off of a loss, but in this case I believe we might see that. Fighters react differently towards their losses. While some get determined to come back from them and avenge their losses, other fighters internalize the defeat and see it as a sign that they’re old and over-the-hill.

I can’t see Froch accepting that he was beaten by a better fighter in Groves. As such, I think Froch will see the loss as a sign that he’s gotten old in the sport at 36. For that reason, I can definitely see Froch hanging up the old gloves if and when he gets beaten by Groves.

Of course, if it was a close loss for Froch, then I believe he’ll trot out some excuses about not having his mind right or something about the holidays coming up and he wasn’t fully focused. Froch won’t be able to use the excuse about being away from home because Manchester is just a short distance away from Froch’s home city of Nottingham. I mean, it’s not as if the fight is taking place in the United States like the last time Froch was beaten by Andre Ward in 2011.

If Froch gets beaten by Groves in the UK, then the only excuses Froch can have is he didn’t have his mind right, he used the wrong tactics or he’s getting old. Given that Froch is always talking about how he has multiple plans for every fight in case plan ‘A’ doesn’t work, I can’t see him having an excuse for him not using the right tactic if he gets beaten.

If it’s a 12 round loss, Froch will have had plentiful amount of time time to shift into plan B, C, D, E and F. If he can’t make adjustments properly to what Groves is doing in the ring, then that’s on him. At 36, you would think that Froch would experienced enough to change plans on the fly without getting stuck and not knowing what to do if Groves is making him look bad.



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