By Scott Gilfoid: WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward has no problems with the way that former IBF/WBA/WBC 168lb champ Carl Froch retired today in getting out of the sport with a bundle of money and mental faculties still intact after a 13-year pro career. Ward thinks it’s a good thing that Froch retired now rather than waiting until he was on the slide with his career.
Ward defeated Froch four years ago in what some feel was Froch’s last against a top guy. Froch lost by a 12 round decision against what was essentially a one-handed Ward, as he’s suffered a fractured hand in training camp for the fight, and he didn’t want to cancel the fight.
Ward showed that he didn’t need more than one hand to do a job on Froch in that fight, and it was pretty impressive to watch.
“You have to respect the way he went about it, and the fact he not only stepped up but beat just about all the guys he fought at the top level,” Ward said about Froch to skysports.com. “He was competitive in every fight and brought his best every time out.”
What boxing fans have an issue with Froch about is how he got them stoked up about a fight against WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin in the past month, and even of last week, Froch was still talking about the Kazakhstan fighter on his twitter. For all the talk that Froch did about Golovkin, it’s a big letdown to see Froch retire from the sport without facing him. It’s hard to reconcile all the bold talk from Froch with the guy that just bowed out of the sport without backing it up in the ring against Golovkin. It comes across to some boxing fans like he ducked the Golovkin fight by choosing to retire rather than take the fight. Froch had wanted to fight Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. earlier this year, but an elbow injury derailed that fight from taking place. A lot of boxing fans didn’t understand why Froch was so interested in fighting a flawed fighter like Chavez Jr. when there was a guy like Golovkin out there waiting to fight him.
“He did it the right way – it’s a victory to go out on your own terms with money and faculties intact,” Ward said. At the end of the day that’s what it’s all about.”
Ward was open to a fight a rematch against Froch in the last four years, but he didn’t find the interest being reciprocal. When there was talk of the two of them facing each other in a rematch recently, nothing came of it. Froch ended up losing his WBA title for failing to fight Ward, and his IBF title for failing to fight James DeGale.
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