By Scott Gilfoid: World Boxing Council super middleweight champion Carl Froch (26-0, 20 KO’s) makes light of the shots he absorbed in his questionable 12 round split decision against Andre Dirrell (18-1, 13 KO’s) in their stage 1 Super Six bout last October in Nottingham, England. Froch, 32, says in article at the Sun “The fight with him [Dirrell] was tricky and demanding, but put absolutely no wear or tear on me physically. After I won the WBC title against Jean Pascal I was as stiff as a plank in the morning.

Froch continues “To give that level of effort and trade bombs too, well it takes its toll on you. But the morning after Dirrell, I had some breakfast, had a shower and nipped out like it was any other day. The fight had no impact on me at all. If I was trying to raid a champion’s title, even in defeat, I could guarantee you the next day they would know they’d been in a fight.”

I think Froch is forgetting about the punishment he took in the later rounds of the fight when Froch was staggered by a howitzer left hand from Dirrell that briefly had Froch staggering. Dirrell later appeared to hurt Froch again with another tremendous left to the head. Luckily for Froch, Dirrell didn’t pour it on and go for the knockout. We can only guess what might have happened had he really went after Froch with both fists flying.

But for Froch to say that he didn’t take punishment makes me think he’s not remembering the fight clearly, because he was hurt twice from what I saw of the fight. Any time a fighter is hurt in a bout, there’s a chance that there the fighters’ ability to take punishment in the future diminishes. We don’t know yet how Froch will do against his next opponent former WBA super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler when they fight on April 24th, in their stage 2 Super Six bout which will be held in Kessler’s country of Denmark.

But if Dirrell shook something lose in Froch’s brain housing with his potent left hand shots in the 10th, 11th and 12th rounds, the after effects of those big shots could be seen in Froch’s bout with Kessler. Although he doesn’t get a lot of credit for being a good puncher, Kessler has respectable power, especially with his left hook and right hand. If I’m Kessler, I’m going to go after Froch immediately and land as many head shots as I can to see if the Dirrell fight took something out of Froch.

Kessler could end up taking Froch early if he puts in a concerted effort at testing Froch’s chin early in the fight. When you get hurt in a fight you never really know how the fighter will look in his next bout when he starts eating shots to the head. Kessler will have little problems landing his power shots against Froch with his hands down by sides the way he likes to keep them when he fights.