By Manuel Perez: It looks as if World Boxing Council super middleweight champion Carl Froch (24-0, 19 KOs) has finally got a location for his April 25th title defense against former middleweight champion Jermain Taylor. The bout will be taking place at the Foxwoods resort in Connecticut rather than England.
Froch, 31, is coming off a grueling 12-round decision over Jean Pascal in December in an exciting fight that pretty much placed Froch on the boxing map, at least as far as fans in the U.S. are concerned.
Giving up a lot of speed to the Roy Jones Jr. like Pascal, Froch walked through a lot of shots from Pascal in order to get the decision. It wasn’t easy, however, as Pascal was able to hit Froch cleanly almost as much as he pleased and if not for Froch’s good chin, Pascal might have been able to take the fight.
In keeping pressure on Pascal the whole time, he made it tough on him and forced him to battle when he wanted to rest. By the later rounds, Pascal had little left in the tank and gave away most of the last five rounds of the tight, giving the fight to Froch.
In facing Taylor, Froch is meeting a fighter with even more power than Pascal and with hand speed that matches him. Based on that, this fight figures to be a tough one for Froch to win, as Taylor will have the experience, speed and the skills advantage over the slower more limited Froch.
The one thing that Froch has going for him is that he generally has good stamina and can fight hard even into the later rounds. If he can win enough of the earlier rounds of the fight, he might be able to edge Taylor by winning the majority of the last six rounds and take the fight.
Chris John vs. Rocky Juarez This Weekend
In an effort to get some legitimacy, WBA featherweight champion Chris John (42-0, 22 KOs) will be defending his title against Rocky Juarez on Saturday night at the Toyota Center, in Houston, Texas. John, 29, is showing a lot of courage in traveling to the U.S. to take the fight with Juarez, because John, the champion, has fought largely his entire career in the safe confines of Indonesia where he lives.
That is, until recently when John traveled to Tokyo, Japan to fight Hiroyuki Enoki in September 2008, a fight in which John won by a 12-round unanimous decision. The fight against Juarez on Saturday night isn’t as risky as it may seem, however, because Juarez isn’t nearly as good as some of the other featherweights in the division like Steven Luevano.
John has taken a lot of heat since his incredibly controversial 12-round unanimous decision win over Juan Manuel Marquez in March 2006. Marquez easily looked to be the better fighter on that night and according to my card, I had him winning 10 rounds to 2 for John.
However, the fight was fought in Indonesia, and the referee took points away from Marquez in two consecutive rounds in the 11th and 12th, giving Marquez the fight. However, even with the point deductions, I had Marquez winning by a comfortable margin. He not only landed the harder shots in the fight, but landed more often and bulled around the slender John. It was terrible mismatch, yet John still ended up winning the fight.
Juarez is a good fighter and if he can use his strength, I think he can beat John. The trick is that Juarez has to stay on him the whole time and not let John get on the outside where he likes to use his jab and hooks to pile up points. Marquez didn’t let him in his fight with him, so hopefully Juarez has studied that fight and knows how to defeat John’s style.
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