Bernard Hopkins to Froch: You’re a fraud!!

By Boxing News - 02/08/2015 - Comments

By Scott Gilfoid: After hearing that WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch saw a fight with him as a “lose-lose” situation due to his advanced age and the blowback criticism that he would receive should he lose the fight, 50-year-old former two division world champion Bernard Hopkins came out on attack on Sunday in calling Froch a fraud.

Hopkins said that Froch doesn’t have the confidence to face him, and that’s why he’s taking the easy path in going after a fight against former WBC 160 pound belt holder Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.

“Carl Froch, you’re a fraud!!” Hopkins said via his twitter. “You don’t have the confidence to fight me? Chavez is easy pickings. Fight fans in England @Carl_Froch is cared of me!!! He’s a phony @EddieHearn.”

Ouch! That’s got to hurt Froch. Hopkins obviously was looking forward to facing Froch in the summer so that could capture his WBA 168 pound title, and become a three division world champion. In the process of beating Froch, Hopkins would break his own record for being the oldest fighter to win a world title at 50-years-old. That would be a huge feather to put in Hopkins’ hat.

Hopkins fought Joe Calzaghe in 2008 and arguably beat him, but the judges gave the decision to Calzaghe instead. I saw that fight, and I definitely had Hopkins winning it. He landed the cleaner and harder shots all throughout the bout.

Froch says that some boxing fans would have dumped on him if he were to have taken the fight against Hopkins and lost it.

Froch feels that he would beat Hopkins without any doubts, yet he still says that fans would have gone after him if he had lost. Besides that, Froch thinks he wouldn’t have gotten any credit if he’d beaten Hopkins because of the American fighters’ age.

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What’s interesting here is that Froch probably will get even less credit if he faces Julio Cesar Chavez Jr because the Mexican fighter hasn’t fought since March of 2013, and he’s looked very average in his last three fights against Brian Vera and Sergio Martinez.

Chavez Jr has fought only three times since 2012, with one fight coming against Sergio Martinez and two others against journeyman Brian Vera. If Froch beats Chavez Jr, it’s going to be a situation where a lot of boxing fans are going to say “so what. Why don’t you face someone that is actually good?”

At least if Froch were to fight Hopkins, he’d be facing a guy that only recently lost his IBF and WBA light heavyweight titles. Hopkins was beaten by Sergey Kovalev by a 12 round decision last November.

Ideally, Froch needs to be looking to fight the top guys at super middleweight like Andre Ward, the Dirrell brothers and Gilberto Ramirez. Froch already opted not to fight James DeGale, so he’s not on the list.

Froch should be fighting those guys though instead of Chavez Jr, because I don’t see Chavez Jr going anywhere in the super middleweight division unless he beats WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham, who many boxing fans see as a paper champion and the weakest link among the champions at 168.

The 37-yer-old Froch really isn’t that much younger than the 50-year-old Hopkins, so I don’t see him getting a lot of criticism should Hopkins school him. I mean, Froch has already been schooled in the past by Andre Ward and Andre Dirrell. I don’t see how he could get any more additional heat from boxing fans after those defeats. Froch got a controversial win over Dirrell, but I and a lot of fans had Dirrell winning comfortably.



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