By Scott Gilfoid: WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch says he won’t be vacating his WBA 168 pound title like he did with his IBF strap recently. Froch says he’ll defend the belt. This means that we could potentially see a fight between Froch and WBA Super World super middleweight champion Andre Ward.
The World Boxing Association recently ordered Froch and Ward to begin negotiations for a fight that needs to take place within the next 90 days. It was assumed by a lot of boxing fans that Froch would simply vacate his WBA strap just like he did with his IBF title, because he’s shown absolutely no interest in fighting Ward since he took a licking from the American fighter four years ago in the Super Si tournament in 2011.
Since that time, Froch has reasoned that Ward doesn’t bring anything to the table in terms of fans, so why bother fighting. Well, Froch now is faced with the reality that he could get his WBA stripped from him if he fails to take the challenge against Ward.
At the same time, its going to look bad for Froch to face former WBC 160 pound champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr without a belt in his possession. The fight between them loses much of the meaning if there isn’t one legitimate title on the line.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEj5NFuD7hU
“I fought him [Andre Ward] in the US,’ Froch said via the Dailymail.co.uk. ‘Now it’s only right that he comes over here. To be a truly great champion you have to box overseas. Ward needs to be forced to travel out of his comfort zone. I dare him. He will discover that I’m a very different animal here than I was that night on the Boardwalk.”
I get the impression that Froch is counting on the ring rusty Ward not agreeing to take the fight with him due to Ward’s long year and a half layoff. Ward hasn’t fought since December of 2013 when he defeated Edwin Rodriguez by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision on HBO.
Ward recently signed with a new promoter in Roc Nation Sports. Ward has been talking about wanting a tune-up fight before looking for a bigger one. But it looks like Ward is going to be forced into the position where if he wants the big money fight against Froch, he’s going to need to take the fight without a tune-up.
If Ward doesn’t take the fight, then it’s probably going to be the last chance for him to get the British fighter in the ring.
Froch will then move on and face someone like Chavez Jr and then 50-year-old Bernard Hopkins. Those are the fighters that Froch is keen on fighting for some reason. Who knows why? Froch would surely gain more respect by taking on Ward, the Dirrell brothers, Sergey Kovalev or Adonis Stevenson.
“I vacated the IBF title so as not to delay James DeGale from getting his chance any longer. But I’m not giving up the WBA title. No way,’ Froch said.
I didn’t know that Froch gave up the IBF title because he didn’t want to delay DeGale getting his own title shot. I had assumed that Froch vacated simply because he didn’t want a messy fight against DeGale, which Froch might have wound up losing. I mean, it would obviously be a horrible way for Froch to end up his career in getting beaten by DeGale, a fighter who George Groves defeated four years ago in 2011.
Froch wants to fight Andre Ward at the Forest Grounds in Nottingham, UK. Just why Froch wants to fight him there rather than Wembly Stadium is unclear. I would think that a Froch-Ward fight would easily sellout Wembly due to the high interest there would be for this match-up.
This wouldn’t be a fight where Froch was being matched against a domestic level fighter like Groves. Ward is the real thing, and he’s considered by many boxing fans and writers to be the best fighter in the super middleweight division by far.
Froch’s promoter Eddie Hearn has the City Ground reserved for May 30th, but Froch sees that as being too near. He thinks that he and Ward need more time to train before they face each other.
“When you think about it, beating Ward in Nottingham would be a fantastic way to end my career,” Froch said.
There’s no doubt that Froch’s career could end with a fight against Ward, but I don’t see Froch ending his career on a winning note if he takes that fight. Ward is just too talented, too fast, and too good of an inside fighter for a guy like Froch to defeat him.
Froch would certainly earn more respect from boxing fans by taking the fight with Ward, because this isn’t a rusty Chavez Jr or an old Hopkins. Froch would earn more respect from fans even if he got spanked by Ward, which is what I see happening. The fans would give Froch credit for taking the fight with Ward, because right now not too many fighters seem all that eager to face him. But with that being said, I don’t see Froch taking the fight.
If Ward suddenly shows that he too is interested in taking the fight, then I see Froch quickly vacating his WBA title and then waiting until Chavez Jr is free to face him. It would be just too dangerous a fight for Froch to face Ward with too high of a probability of Froch taking a whipping from the American fighter.
When Ward and Froch fought each other in 2011, Ward was forced to fight with one hand for most of the bout after he suffered a fractured left hand during training camp. Ward went into the fight with a bad fracture that left him pretty much fighting with just one hand. But even with one hand, Ward did a number on Froch and gave him a sound thrashing.
I don’t see it being any different that Ward is fighting in the UK this time rather than the U.S. In reality, Ward didn’t even have a hometown advantage over Froch, because the fight took place at Atlantic City, New Jersey, which is a long, long ways from Ward’s home city of Oakland, California.
Ward didn’t have a huge amount of fans coming over from Oakland to see the fight. You can’t call that a hometown advantage at all when the fight took place on the opposite side of the U.S from where Ward lives.
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