By Sean McDaniel: The upcoming Super Six stage 3 bout between former WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (26-1, 20 KO’s) and German-based Arthur Abraham (31-1, 25 KO’s) won’t likely be taking place outside of Europe, according to Panarmenian.net. Froch, 32, wanted the fight to take place in the United States or his home city of Nottingham, England. However, Chris Meyer, the managing director for Abraham’s promoter Sauerland Events, is saying that the Abraham-Froch fight must take place in Europe, because that was a part of the agreement for the fight. Froch has already said no to the fight taking place in Germany and Sweden.

It’s unclear whether Froch would be willing to fight Abraham in Switzerland or Italy. Froch is hoping that the fight will take place in Nottingham, where he has already fought once in the Super Six tournament, beating Andre Dirrell by a 12 round split decision. Froch was beaten in his second fight of the tournament by Mikkel Kessler in a 12 round unanimous decision loss last month on April 24th. The loss has left Froch slightly bitter, as he felt that he did enough to get the win.

Froch feels that he would have won the fight had it taken place in his home city of Nottingham. Froch’s fight with Abraham is tentatively scheduled for August 21st, but the fight won’t likely take place on that date because Froch has asked for the fight to be pushed back into September to let his cut heal from his last fight with Kessler. Froch doesn’t think he can win a decision in Germany and wants no part of trying his luck there with the judges.

The fight is especially important for Froch, because if he loses to Abraham then he’ll be eliminated from the tournament. Froch would then have lost his WBC super middleweight title and two out of his last three fights. His win over Dirrell was questionable, because many boxing fans feel that Dirrell did enough to win. Froch is talking retirement if loses to Abraham, because he doesn’t want to become a fighter that competes on the local fight scene only.

However, Froch has a lot of options even if he does lose to Abraham. He can move up in weight to the light heavyweight division and compete against fighters like Jean Pascal, who he already beat last year, and Chad Dawson. A lot of the super middleweights will likely find their way to the light heavyweight division as they continue to grow, so Froch won’t be alone up there.