By Chris Williams: In looking back at World Boxing Council super middleweight champion Carl Froch’s performance against Jermain Taylor last Saturday night, I’d have to say that Froch probably failed miserably in gaining any new American or British boxing fans despite his come from behind 12th round TKO win over Taylor. The performance was fatally flawed due to Froch being knocked down in the 3rd round, dominated for the first half of the fight, and his lack of any real defensive skills.
Froch could have impressed a lot more if he had been able to wade through Taylor’s punches in the early going like Kelly Pavlik was able to do two years ago in his 7th round TKO of Taylor. Pavlik almost got knocked out in the 2nd round, but he made it a lot more exciting to watch due to his tremendous pressure he put on Taylor.
In contrast, Froch fought much more cautiously than Pavlik and looked even slower than him, and that’s not easy to do. After the fight, Froch gave a longwinded interview with Showtime in which Froch came across as a little defensive when questioned about his knockdown in the 3rd.
It wasn’t the type of interview that would likely won Froch any new fans, because besides his slight defensiveness, he then called out Joe Calzaghe, who’s retired and not interested in fighting Froch.
Froch’s seemed rather crude in comparison to the quicker, more technically oriented Taylor. Even when things were going right for Froch in the later rounds when Taylor was totally gassed out, Froch still looked barely able to win the rounds despite going all out. Taylor had nothing left by this point in the fight and was only fighting at about 50% of what he was in the early rounds.
Taylor was no longer throwing power shots and seemed limited to jabbing only. This should have been easy for Froch to dominate, but he couldn’t, because he seemed awkward and uncoordinated as he missed over and over again in trying to land his shots. In judging by the negative comments by American boxing fans on various internet sites, it seems that Froch’s poor performance didn’t escape the attention of the American fans, who were none too impressed with Froch.
Maybe things might have been different had Froch pressured Taylor more in the earlier rounds, when Taylor was at his strongest point. But, what happened was that Taylor, who had severe stamina issues going into this fight, tired out and only then was Froch able to get into the fight.
In watching how badly Taylor faded after the 4th, it’s hard to give Froch any credit whatsoever for it, because he wasn’t the reason why Taylor tired out. Froch wasn’t applying much pressure at all, and was fighting rather timidly.
It was Taylor’s own body that gave out on him, just as it had in the second half of his fights with Bernard Hopkins, Pavlik and to a certain extent against Cory Spinks and Jeff Lacy. It wasn’t so much what Froch did in the fight but rather Taylor running out of gas and then Froch taking advantage of the situation.
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