Andre Ward says no to fighting Carl Froch in Nottingham, UK

By Boxing News - 03/31/2015 - Comments

ward45By Scott Gilfoid: WBA Super World super middleweight champion Andre Ward (27-0, 14 KOs) says he’s not interested in fighting WBA regular super middleweight champion Carl Froch (33-2, 24 KOs) in his own home town of Nottingham, UK. Six years American Andre Dirrell came to Nottingham to fight Froch, and he ended up losing a controversial decision that many fans of the sport felt that Dirrell should have won.

Ward isn’t saying if he’s worried about winding up like Dirrell, but it wouldn’t be surprising if that is his main reason not wanting to venture into Nottingham. Dirrell fought well enough to deserve a 10 rounds to 2 victory in my view, and yet he wound up getting the loss by a 12 round split decision.

Froch’s promoter Eddie Hearn says he wants every advantage he can get for Froch in the Ward fight, and that means staging the fight in Nottingham. However, Ward says he’s willing to fight Froch in the UK, but just not Nottingham. Unless Froch is ready to vacate his last remaining title, he kind of has to agree to fight Ward in another city.

If the two fighters are unable to negotiate a fight, it’ll go to a purse bid, and Ward’s promoters at Roc Nation will have a good chance of winning that purse bid. Whether they’ll want to stage the fight in the UK is doubtful.

Froch would then have to either face Ward in the United States again or vacate. My guess is Froch will vacate his last remaining title. He already vacated his IBF title after he was ordered to fight James DeGale recently.

“The U.K. is one thing, Nottingham is something different,” Ward said via Skysports.com. “Now he’s saying: ‘Well, I came to America, you need to come to Nottingham.‘ The thing is this: Atlantic City, where we fought the finals of the Super Six, is thousands of miles away from my home. That’s a road fight. I live on the West Coast, the fight was on the East Coast, which was a six-hour plane ride for me. I’m not willing to come to Nottingham. I don’t think I should have to.”

Ward is right. Oakland and Atlantic City are thousands of miles away from each other. I believe England is only like 360 miles long and about 300 miles wide at its widest part. The distance from Oakland to Atlantic City is 2930 miles. That’s clear across the United States. As such, Ward didn’t have a ton of his home fans attending his fight against Froch back in 2011 when the two of them faced each other in the Super Six tournament. Ward might as well have been fighting in another country altogether. He was there pretty much all by his lonesome. For that reason I believe that is was a neutral venue rather than one that helped Ward in any way.

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“But Wembley Stadium, the U.K. as a whole? I’d love to come,” Ward said. “I’ve accepted his invitation to come to the U.K. but it’s going to be on the right terms. I’m not just going to take anything. It’s going to be by mutual agreement if I’m in the U.K.”

Yeah, Ward is right. It needs to be a mutual thing. It’s not as if Froch has an edge over Ward or anything. I mean, Ward did whip Froch in their fight four years ago, and Ward is the WBA Super World super middleweight champion, whereas Froch is just the WBA World champion. In other words, Ward is considered the WBA’s top super middleweight belt holder.

Hearn said “We are running out of time and a guy called Chavez Jr fights in a couple of weeks, and after that we will be desperate to try and make a fight with him.”

I think I can see where this is leading to. I see Froch and Hearn going for the Chavez Jr fight, and then daring the WBA to strip him of his WBA title for failing to take the Ward fight. The WBA ordered the negotiations between Ward and Froch to take place. But if that means that Froch and Hearn give Ward a take it or leave it offer about taking the fight in Nottingham, then I don’t see the fight happening. I mean, Froch has been blabbing about wanting to fight under the bright lights of Las Vegas, Nevada for ages now.

Here’s his chance of doing that by fighting Ward. I seriously doubt that Hearn and Froch will try and force Chavez Jr to come to Nottingham for the fight. If they’re willing to take the Chavez Jr fight in Las Vegas, then they should take the fight against Ward in Vegas as well. If it’s good for the goose then it’s good for the gander.

I really don’t think Hearn is going to be able to persuade Ward to come fight Froch at the City Ground in Nottingham. If the shoe was on the other foot with him having been arguably robbed in a fight in one of the cities in the United States, then I don’t think Froch would want to go back to the scene of the crime to fight another time in that city.



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