By Sean McDaniel: A couple of months ago, few would imagine that Carl Froch (24-0, 19 KOs) would be sitting alone as the one British champion, but with Joe Calzaghe bowing out prematurely on his career rather than stick around and face tough challengers like Chad Dawson and Bernard Hopkins, it’s left Froch to hold up the good British name all by himself.
On Saturday, April 25th, Froch, the WBC super middleweight champion, takes on arguably his toughest fight of his career against former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Jermain Taylor (28-2-1, 17 KOs) at the Foxwoods Resort Casino, in Mashantucket, Connecticut.
Froch, 31, will be at a tremendous disadvantage against Taylor on April 25th, mainly because Froch will be fighting out of the UK for the first time in his career, having to travel all the way to the United States to fight the American Taylor.
However, it’s not quite as bad as it could be. At least the fight won’t be held in Little Rock, Arkansas, the hometown of Taylor. For Froch, it will be the first defense of his WBC title and he’s certainly picked a tough opponent to defend it against.
However, Froch doesn’t have much choice, as the WBC is perhaps the toughest division in boxing with Taylor ranked number #1, Andre Ward, number #2 and Andre Dirrell at number #3. Contrast that to the IBF, where Lucian Bute has Vitaly Tsypko, Librado Andrade and Sakio Bika as his top three challengers to his belt. Those are all good fighters, but not in the class of what Froch has awaiting him in the future should he get past Taylor next month.
Unlike many other British and Welsh fighters, Froch isn’t interested in fighting his entire career in Britain, and wants to get out of his comfort zone by traveling around the globe to fight the best fighters. Taylor, despite his two losses to Kelly Pavlik, certainly fits that category.
Taylor may have lost to Pavlik, but he’s still better than any other middleweight in the division and perhaps better than all the super middleweights as well. Before he can lay to that claim, he’s going to have to prove it against Froch.
Froch feels that Taylor is a good fighter, highlighting his two victories over Bernard Hopkins to lend proof to that, but he feels that Taylor sees him as the better fighter. Froch bristles at the though that Taylor will be going toe to toe with him, and doesn’t think he’ll want once he gets a taste of his power early on. Taylor may be just talking, however, because Froch has a fighting style somewhat like Pavlik.
Taylor learned his lesson in his first loss to Pavlik in September 2007, a 7th round TKO, when Taylor made the mistake of going right at Pavlik and trying to beat him at his own game.
With Froch seemingly having even more power than Pavlik, it’s doubtful that Taylor will do anything other than to jab, move and pick his spots where he can land some occasional flurries.
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