By Scott Gilfoid: World Boxing Council super middleweight champion Carl Froch was sounding a little bit cocky in today’s Super Six tourney press release in talking about recently beaten Americans Andre Dirrell and Jermain Taylor, commenting “The Yank’s aren’t having the best of times so far. I felt for Jermain Taylor getting stopped in the last round against [Arthur] Abraham, it was like my fight with him all over again.

As for Dirrell, he was far too negative against me. Maybe Ward can get them back into it [in this Saturday’s bout against World Boxing Association super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler], but if he [Ward] doesn’t then it will have been a disastrous start for the Americans,” Froch said. First of all, Froch doesn’t need to worry about Ward, not that Froch really cares. He wants Ward to lose so that Froch can get a shot at Kessler’s WBA title.

Ward will do just fine against Kessler, and there won’t be any doubts about the outcome. Andre Dirrell lost a controversial 12 round split decision to Froch on October 17th in Froch’s home city of Nottingham, England. The outcome of this fight caused a lot of anger for boxing fans who saw the fight, because many of them felt that Dirrell should have won the fight. Even many boxing fans from England felt that Froch lost the fight.

While some boxing fans did feel that Froch won, a huge amount disagreed with the outcome and thought that the talented Dirrell was given a bad deal in the fight. Given how controversial the outcome was, the last thing you would think for Froch to do is make mention of the Yanks [Americans] not having the best of times in the Super Six tournament. If it was me, I’d just be happy that I got the win, although I wouldn’t be all that happy if I fought as poorly as Froch did in his fight with Dirrell.

Froch had huge problems with the hand speed of Dirrell in the early part of the fight. Froch then reported to fighting rough in the 5th to try and get Dirrell off his game. It worked initially, because the referee allowed Froch to get away with the fouls and ignored Dirrell when he would complain about it.

Froch says “I’m really looking forward to the Kessler fight because I know that’s exactly what it’s going to be – a fight. Dirrell didn’t come to fight and it made for a poor spectacle for the fans, but you know when me and Kessler get in the ring there’s going to be fireworks.” It seems like Froch wasn’t comfortable with the boxing ability of Dirrell, and continues to refer to him as fighting a ‘negative’ fight. However, Dirrell didn’t do anything different from Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson and Floyd Mayweather Jr. Dirrell hit, moved and made Froch’s slow punches miss badly.

It was beautiful boxing and it seemed to really frustrate Froch, who appeared to be hoping that Dirrell would stand and trade in a more traditional fight. I hate to be the one to break this to Froch, but Dirrell doesn’t fight like that nor does Andre Ward or Jermain Taylor.

“I have the power to KO anyone out there including Kessler,” Froch says. Gee, I think all of the Super Six fighters in the tournament have the power to knockout anyone in the tourney. These are, after all, some of the best fighters in the entire division. That wasn’t exactly a brilliant observation from Froch.

If Kessler is dumb enough to stand in front of Froch with his hands down for 12 rounds, yeah, I can see Froch knocking Kessler out. However, the fight won’t be like that and I think Froch is going to be totally destroyed by Kessler. It won’t be close. Dirrell probably would have done a job on Froch too if he had fought more aggressively in the early part of the fight instead of wasting time complaining to the referee for the fouling of Froch.

“Even when I beat Mikkel, I still expect him to bounce back and we will probably end up having a rematch in the final,” Froch says. Wrong. Kessler will be beaten quite badly this Saturday night by Ward, and when Kessler fights Froch, Kessler will be the one likely wins this one with ease, not Froch.