Hearn not sure Froch will take Golovkin fight

By Boxing News - 05/22/2015 - Comments

froch#3By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn surprised the boxing world this week when he revealed that discussions are taking place between him and K2 Promotions for a big fight between his fighter Carl Froch and the top middleweight in the 160lb division Gennady Golovkin for a potentially big mega-fight that Hearn would like to stage in the UK at Wembley Stadium.

Hearn says he’s still not sure that the 37-year-old Froch will take the fight or not against Golovkin. Hearn doesn’t say why Froch would say no to the fight, but it obviously makes you wonder whether he fancies his chances of winning against the Kazakhstan star.

A few months ago, Froch was excited about the prospect of him fighting former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in a clash in Las Vegas, Nevada. The fight was seen as a likely mismatch with Froch being too good for the ring rusty Chavez Jr, who still hasn’t turned his career around after his loss to Sergio Martinez in 2012.

Froch was highly motivated for the Chavez Jr. fight for some reason despite the fact that Chavez Jr. is no longer seen as a major player by many boxing fans. If Froch isn’t excited about fighting an arguably a much better and more respected fighter in Golovkin, it just makes you wonder why Froch wouldn’t be. Does he think the Golovkin fight is below him somehow, or is he simply not confident enough to risk his hide against the puncher? I mean, if Froch is motivated to fight a limited fighter like Chavez Jr, then why isn’t he motivated to face a better fighter in Golovkin? Only Froch can answer that question.

“You know Carl will fight anyone and if it’s a fight he can get up for, and it does happen, then it will be a huge event,” Hearn said to Skysports.com. “I can’t rule it out but I also can’t rule out Carl retiring.”

I don’t buy the bit from Hearn about “Carl will fight anyone.” If that was the case, he would have fought Andre Dirrell and Andre Ward in a rematch a long, long time ago instead of fighting guys like Yusaf Mack, Mikkel Kessler, George Groves, and Lucian Bute. If Froch was willing to fight anybody, he would have faced Adonis Stevenson when he was his IBF mandatory challenger.

Froch also would have fought Sergey Kovalev or Bernard Hopkins, two very good fighters. The fact is that Froch has shown that there are a lot of guys that he simply won’t fight for whatever reason. He can say he’s motivated enough to fight them, or perhaps them not willing to travel all the way to the UK to fight him in Nottingham.

I think it comes down to Froch just not being open to taking the risks that he would need to take in order to fight the better guys. If he chooses not to fight Golovkin, then you have to assume that he didn’t like his chances of winning the fight.



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