By Scott Gilfoid: It’s no secret that WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (26-0, 20 KO’s) fights in a straight up European style of fight, whereas his next Super Six tournament opponent Mikkel Kessler (42-2, 32 KO’s) has more of a modern pro style of fighting where he hits and moves constantly. When I see Froch’s stand up style of fighting, I think he’s going to have problems in this fight with Kessler. Goodness knows, Froch struggled badly in his last fight with Andre Dirrell by running into pretty everything that Dirrell threw in that fight.
What Froch needs to do to fix this problem is to try and unlearn all of his bad habits of how to stand and especially how to block punches. As things are right now, Froch tends to stand ramrod straight when he fights, as if he has something stuck up his backside. That’s not a good thing because it’s like sticking your head out of a moving car in the middle of swarm bees that are cruising by.
You don’t have your head sticking out like that because it’s going to get strung over and over again. So I think Froch needs to widen his stance, and get lower so he doesn’t run into quite so many Kessler’s jabs on April 24th. Besides Froch’s stand up Euro style of fighting, he needs to put his guard up. I can’t stand to watch him with his hands down by his waist, plodding forward with his lantern jaw sticking out like a large battering ram.
Froch has got to put his guard up and try to block some of the incoming he keeps getting nailed with in every fight. There’s no crime in blocking a few shots, and even if Froch doesn’t block a whole of punches by keeping his guard up, at least he can block some of them. I just think it looks bad to see the guy moving around with his hands down by his waist and not being able to block all the shots that are thrown at him.
In the past, it didn’t matter so much because Froch was fighting a bunch of 2nd tier fighters, but in the past year or so, he’s starting to face better opponents and he’s really getting creamed a lot with big shots. For Froch to beat Kessler, he’s got to get a clue and start putting gloves up to try and block at least some of the shots that are that thrown his way.
If Froch doesn’t change his stand up style of fighting before he meets Kessler, I see him taking a royal beating in that fight and winding up losing his WBC title. It might be good lesson I suppose. If Froch ends up getting battered all over the ring, he’ll understand that he needs to change his defense and fighting stance and make it more modern.
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