By William Mackay: Former World Boxing Council super middleweight champion Carl Froch (26-1, 20 KO’s) wants no part of fighting former IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (31-1, 25 KO’s), according to Badlefthook.com. Froch, 32, also doesn’t want to fight in Sweden, a neutral country that was offered up to him as an alternative to Germany. But where Froch does want to fight is in the United States, where Froch has fought twice before during his career. That’s all well and good that Froch wants to fight in the U.S., but it’s not exactly practical because a fight between him and Abraham wouldn’t likely draw flies unless it was heavily promoted and place in a hotbed of boxing, like Las Vegas, Nevada.
Even there, the fight likely wouldn’t sellout. Froch needs to face the facts. For a fight between him and Abraham to do really well in selling tickets, it’s got to take place in either of the two fighters’ home countries. This means either England or Germany. Froch is saying he wants no part of a fight in Germany, where he thinks he has little chance of winning. Likewise, Abraham doesn’t want to fight in Froch’s home city of Nottingham, England, where Froch already won a very controversial bout against American Andre Dirrell in the stage 1 part of the Super Six tournament. Froch did fight Jermain Taylor last year in April 2009, in Connecticut, in the United States.
But the fight didn’t have a huge audience, and it’s highly unlikely that fight between Froch and Abraham, both largely unknown by the casual boxing fans in the U.S., would draw enough fans for it to sellout if it takes place in the U.S. Froch might want to talk to Abraham and his promoters about flipping a coin to decide on Germany or England. Since Froch is not happy with things, maybe he’d feel better if it came down to chance rather than someone telling him what to do. Realistically, there’s a good chance that this fight won’t go to the cards anyway, because Abraham punches like an ox and will have a better than average chance of knocking Froch out no matter where the fight takes place.
Froch likes to fight with his hands down by his sides. The problem is he doesn’t have the required reflexes to lean away from incoming shots and often gets hit hard without any chance to block the shots. This is bad news for a fight against Abraham because he punches so hard.
Froch lost his last fight of the Super Six tournament to Mikkel Kessler by a 12 round decision last month on April 24th. Froch feels he won the fight, and is doing his utmost to ensure that his next fight is either at home, again, or completely out of Europe. If the fight takes place in the United States, you would have to think that it would benefit Froch more than it would Abraham. Froch has a large following in the U.S. because his slugging style is popular here and he built up a following with his win over Jermain Taylor.
Abraham has fought once in the U.S., losing o Andre Dirrell by a disqualification in their stage 2 Super Six fight in April. Abraham didn’t look good at all in the fight, not throwing enough punches and getting completely outclassed until the 11th when Abraham hit Dirrell in the head after he slipped on the canvas. The fight was disqualified and it is something that did little in building a fan base for Abraham.
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