By Dan Ambrose: After watching Car Froch struggle for 12 rounds against Mikkel Kessler last Saturday night in losing a 12 round decision in Herning, Denmark, the last thing I would expect from Froch is to win the Super Six tournament. Froch, besides his dreadful defense, looked completely exhausted from rounds six through eight. It was all he could do to throw a lifeless punches and pawing jabs.

Froch came into the fight with a reputation of having great stamina, a fighter that wears down his opponents with his relentless pressure style of fighting. Froch may have been that kind of fighter in the past, but he didn’t look like the same fighter he was in fights against Jermain Taylor, Jean Pascal and Andre Dirrell. The conditioning just wasn’t there for Froch.

Froch still thinks he’s going to win the Super Six tournament, and says “I can still be undisputed champion in my next three fights, let’s not forget that. This fight is going to make me stronger, better and more determined.” I suppose it’s theoretically possible that Froch will win the Super Six tourney, but judging by how Froch has looked in his last three fights against Taylor, Dirrell and Kessler, I don’t believe the chances are all that good.

I’d be more inclined to think that Froch will lose his next fight against Arthur Abraham on August 21st and end up not making it to the semi finals of the Super Six tourney. I see that as a stronger possibility than Froch sweeping his next three fights and winning the Super Six. You got to have more than just a great chin to win the Super Six tournament, and that’s what I think Froch has been getting by with in the last two fights of the tourney.

Froch has been taking a lot of shots and finding it increasingly difficult to land his own shots. Over and over again in the Kessler bout Froch missed with his punches. It was like watching a power hitter striking out on breaking balls all night long. The problem for Froch is that he’s not blessed with good hand speed and needs to either throw a lot of punches or time his opponent to land his shots.

Against Kessler, Froch wasn’t throwing enough and his timing wasn’t there either for him. What this suggests is that he may have over-trained for the fight or else he could be showing his age. Of course, the third possibility is that Froch never had the speed to begin with and is now struggling against the quality opposition in the Super Six tournament.

Dirrell gave Froch a lot of respect in their fight in Nottingham and woke up and started fighting with a lot more assertiveness in the last three rounds of the fight. Kessler fought hard the entire 12 rounds, and gave Froch fits throughout the fight. I expect Froch will have additional problems against the power punching Abraham when they meet in August. Abraham hits incredibly hard and will have the perfect opponent in front of him with Froch. Abraham will have a stationary target all night long to aim his hooks at and I don’t think is going to go well for Froch.