By William Mackay: World Boxing Council (WBC) super middleweight champion Carl Froch (26-0, 20 KO’s) is hoping he gets a fair shake tonight in his stage 2 Super Six tournament fight against Mikkel Kessler (42-2, 32 KO’s) in Herning, Denmark. Froch doesn’t want to get ripped off by losing a decision in a fight that he might win in the ring. The unfortunate part about boxing is that when a fighter goes into the home town of another fighter, there is often a case of the visiting fighter ending up on the short end of the stick when it comes down to a fight that goes to decision. Some boxing fans think that judges purposely rip off visiting fighters to give the home town fighter the victory.
However, it might be as simple a case as the judges just getting caught up in the crowd noise, which typically favors the home town fighter. It’s less of an issue when a fight is truly one-sided, but for fights that are close there’s often a case where the visiting fighter ends up losing by a controversial decision.
Froch isn’t happy thinking that he might need a knockout to beat Kessler, who will be fighting in his home country of Denmark. Froch says “If I win a round and its close I expect to win it 10-9 on the points system,” Froch says in an article at the Mirror. “I don’t expect to come here expecting to knock him out to win. Everyone keeps telling me I need to knock him out to win. But to me that means they are going to cheat and that means they are to disgrace the belt and the sport of boxing. I might even consider retirement if I get ripped off. I feel that strongly about it. It would be downright wrong and unfair.” Welcome to boxing.
This unfortunately is a part of the sport, but I don’t see it as cheating. Judges, as I said, are influenced by crowd noise. Ideally, it might help if the judges had ear muffs put on them to filter out crowd noise. That way, they would be able to judge the fight without listening to the cheers for one fighter or another. However, if the judges were unable to hear noise, they would also be unable to hear the impact from harder blows and other sounds that fighters make when they are absorbing punishment.
Froch, if he loses by a questionable decision, won’t be the first or the last fighter who loses in that manner if it comes to that. Instead of getting upset about it and thinking about retirement, Froch needs to understand that it happens all the time in boxing. Even in Froch’s last fight, there are many people that felt that he got a home town decision over visiting fighter Andre Dirrell, who fought Froch in his home city of Nottingham, England.
For many British fans that saw the fight, they felt that Froch won the fight. But other boxing fans from outside of the UK felt that Dirrell should have won the fight. Does that mean that Dirrell got ripped off? No, it could be a case of the judges preferring Froch’s style of fighting to that of Dirrell’s or maybe they were somehow influenced by crowd noise. It’s hard to say. But it goes to show that questionable decisions happen often and it doesn’t mean that someone is being deliberately ripped off.
Froch says “If it goes to points – and I don’t think it will – I expect to win on points, but I strongly believe I will get Mikkel Kessler out of there early given his history in his last few fights.” That might well be, but Froch could also end up losing by points as well. Hopefully, Froch doesn’t overreact by quitting the sport hastily should he lose a decision tonight against Kessler. Judging is a subjective thing, and they are, after all human.
Froch is going to be pretty much alone out there in Herning without a lot of support from his loyal British fans. Many of them can’t make the trip because of the volcano ash that has interrupted air travel. You can expect mostly Danish fans being heard by the judges tonight at the MCH Messecenter Herning. Froch says “Unless there’s any skullduggery, I will be given a fair crack of the whip.”
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