Froch-Kessler: Will this be the beginning of the end for Carl?

By Boxing News - 04/23/2010 - Comments

Image: Froch-Kessler: Will this be the beginning of the end for Carl?By Scott Gilfoid: WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch will be facing an arguably much superior fighter on Saturday night in Herning, Denmark. Froch’s opponent, Mikkel Kessler, has almost every advantage that you can even think of going into this fight, except for his recent loss to Andre Ward. Minus that, Kessler seems to have all the cards stacked in his favor for their Super Six tournament fight with Froch. I just worry that this might be the start of a cascade of loses for Froch.

It’s not that I think will be ruined or anything if he gets beaten by Kessler on Saturday night, but rather I think Froch with his Ricky Hatton like skills, is coming up against better and better opponents. Froch has probably reached his peak in terms of talent, and he’s starting to face guys that have a little more going on than he does in the ring. Froch dodged a bullet in his last fight against Andre Dirrell when he was awarded a 12 round split decision in a fight that many people felt that Dirrell won.

Froch was on his way to losing his fight before that to Jermain Taylor after getting dropped by him. Froch pulled out the win in the last seconds of the fight. That was a great win, but the fact Froch is struggling over and over again in his fights suggests that he’s likely not going to stay unbeaten for very much longer. I think Froch has less than 24 hours left before he suffers loss of his career.

Hopefully, Froch doesn’t let the defeat by Kessler ruin him as a fighter. He’s got to put the loss in perspective as quickly as he can to avoid getting spanked in his next fight against Arthur Abraham. Either way, I see Froch losing that fight too, probably by knockout. Abraham hits too hard and Froch will make it easy for him by going straight at him with his hands down by his sides, hanging uselessly.

Abraham, once he sees Froch coming at him with his hands down, will tee off on Froch and likely end the fight in two or three rounds at best. I think Froch can still be successful against the right opponents, but I don’t see Froch having the same kind of limited success that he recently had with his string of wins over Jean Pascal, Taylor and Dirrell. Froch will have shot his wad, and it will be all downhill from here.

I think Froch will do well if he goes after WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz, who is easily the weakest of the super middleweight champions. Froch wins that fight any day of the week. Stieglitz is made to order for Froch. But I think Froch won’t do that. He’ll probably hang around the super middleweight division and try to get his WBC title back from Kessler or go after WBA champion Andre Ward. I don’t see anything good coming of that, unfortunately.



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