Froch expected to make decision on Golovkin fight this week

By Boxing News - 06/01/2015 - Comments

froch56267By Scott Gilfoid: Well, boxing fans should finally discover this week if former IBF/WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (33-2, 24 KOs) will decide on facing the talented IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) this year or if Froch will instead choose to take the safe route and retire from the sport.

Froch, 37, said recently that he’ll be making his decision on the Golovkin/retirement question this week. He wants to get the decision over with. What is even more confusing is that Froch recently added IBF 168lb champion James DeGale into the equation, saying that he could wind up facing him.

That would obviously be interpreted by a lot of boxing fans as a move where Froch would be looking to take the path of least resistance in facing the lighter punching DeGale rather than Golovkin, who would have an excellent chance of sending Froch into retirement off the back of a vicious knockout loss.

“I can safly say in maybe the first week of June I will be making an announcement,” Froch told BBC.com. “I need the motivation, I need the fear factor and Golovkin brings that. If I decide to fight again, Golovkin’s an opponent I’d definitely like. But it’s a very big ‘if’ because one of my options is to retire.”

Unfortunately a little over a week later Froch said this to IFL TV: “I will fight Gennady Golovkin if I fight again. That’s a potential opponent, as is James DeGale.”

Froch doesn’t seem to make any sense here with this statement. On one hand he’s saying he will fight Golovkin, but in the next breath, he changes it up by calling Golovkin a potential opponent along with DeGale. In analyzing Froch’s indecision, I would have to conclude that he spoke too quickly in saying that he would fight Golovkin if he decided to fight again. I believe that once Froch had a second to think about the ramifications of a fight against Golovkin, namely him getting knocked out, he then quickly threw in the lighter punching DeGale’s name in the mix and said that they’re both potential opponents instead of Golovkin definitely being the one that he wanted to fight if he came back.

I fully expect Froch to take the easy option of fighting DeGale rather than Golovkin if he chooses to fight on, because Froch hasn’t faced a tough challenge since he was whipped by Andre Ward in 2011 in the Super Six tournament. I don’t expect Froch to break that pattern by suddenly facing a live body that can potentially beat him badly like Golovkin. I honestly don’t see Froch ever facing a talent like Golovkin. Instead, it’ll be DeGale, if Froch does choose to fight again, and the two of them will likely face each other at Wembley Stadium in London, UK. I can’t see more than 40,000 fans wanting to see that fight because it’s not an exciting fight and DeGale isn’t a huge name yet. I had him losing his last fight against Andre Dirrell, and I think the two of them should be fighting a rematch.



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