Froch: I’m not moving up to fight Adonis Stevenson at 175

By Boxing News - 12/07/2013 - Comments

froch7343By Scott Gilfoid: IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch says he doesn’t have any plans on moving up to 175 to fight WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson despite the fact that he called him out last Saturday night after knocking out his sparring partner Tony Bellew in the 6th round. Froch says that he thinks Stevenson was just calling him out because of the crowd but not because he really wants the fight.

Froch said to Sky Ringside “I don’t think he [Adonis] has any plans on coming back down to super middleweight , and I certainly don’t have any plans on going up to light heavyweight. I can’t see that fight happening, to be honest. I think Stevenson has found his feet at light heavyweight, and he’s doing really, really well.”

Froch still didn’t fight Stevenson even when he was at super middleweight. One of the reasons Stevenson moved up in weight to light heavyweight was because he couldn’t get Froch to fight him when he was Froch’s mandatory for his IBF belt. Froch’s promoter Eddie Hearn maneuvered around Stevenson and had Froch fight Mikkel Kessler again rather than defend his title against Stevenson.

I think Stevenson would move back down to 168 in a heartbeat if he could get Froch to fight him, but what’s the point of Stevenson doing that if he’s still not going to get the fight. If Hearn wasn’t making the fight before when Adonis was Froch’s mandatory challenger then why would Hearn make the fight now that Stevenson is the WBC 175 lb. champion?

I don’t see why Froch doesn’t move up to 175 to fight Stevenson. I mean, Froch would have a ready- made excuse if he gets thrashed by Adonis. He could just blame it on the fact that he moved up in weight and wasn’t comfortable at the weight.

The thing is Froch doesn’t have an excuse for looking as bad as he did for 9 rounds against George Grove at 168. That was just simply awful fighting by Froch, and he’s lucky that the referee halted the fight prematurely because Groves was nailing him with big power shots in that fight.

Even in the 9th round, Groves was still tagging Froch with huge shots, and he was the better puncher. It looked like Froch hit Groves with a forearm to the head at one point in the 9th round, and the referee didn’t stop the fight to give Froch a warning when it seemed painfully obvious he’d nailed him with a forearm. This happened right before Groves was backed up to the ropes and right before the referee jumped on him while he was still fighting back.



Comments are closed.