By Scott Gilfoid: After predicting a win for Allan Green in his fight against World Boxing Association (WBA) super middleweight champion Andre Ward this past weekend in their Super Six tournament bout, Carl Froch was less than complimentary about Ward’s performance in the fight. Speaking to Livefight.com, the former WBC super middleweight champion Froch said “First and foremost, as a spectator it was like watching paint dry. I recorded the fight to my TV box and can honestly say I will be recording over it. Ward has skills but they won’t pay the bills. People tune in to be entertained, but that jab and maul style, leaning in constantly with his bony head, holding and hitting was very tedious to watch.”

It’s surprising that Froch wasn’t impressed with the performance from Ward, because Froch did a lot of the mauling in his own fight against the talented Andre Dirrell last year in his first bout in the Super Six tournament. Froch could land next to nothing while on the outside against the blazing fast Dirrell, and only found any kind of luck when Froch started mauling Dirrell on the inside, holding and hitting, throwing rabbit punches and body slamming Dirrell to the canvas at one point in the fight in the 5th round. Although Froch didn’t initiate clinching in the fight, he did maul on the inside like Ward.

I personally thought that Ward fought an extraordinary fight against Green. Ward showed incredible ring smarts and talent by beating Green on the inside with short punches to the head and body. But that’s not all that Ward did. He also fought well while on the outside, throwing hard right hands, beautiful lefts and powerful jabs. Ward mixed it up well and wasn’t just mauling.

There were some rounds in which Ward would do a lot of inside fighting for a minute or so, but most of the rounds were Ward fighting mostly on the outside and landing hard shots and then getting in close to avoid Green’s power punches. It was a brilliant strategy by Ward, because he was able to negate Green’s power advantage by staying close to him and preventing Green from getting leverage on his shots.

Ward noted in watching film of Green that he needs lots of room to extend on his power shot to get maximum leverage. Green doesn’t have huge power in close, and I noticed this in his fights against Edison Miranda and Tarvis Simms. Ward no doubt noticed the same thing. Green was like a small kitten when Ward was in close, and that’s why Ward stayed near him, not because he wanted to bore people. It was a strategy and it worked perfectly.

Speaking about Green, Froch says “He looked a bit drained to me. I was expecting more aggression and for Green to let the bombs fly a bit more. I like fighters to talk the talk and then walk the walk, which Green seemed prepared to do in the build up to the fight. But basically he got old-manned out of the fight and will have to book his ideas up if he thinks he is going to beat [Mikkel] Kessler, especially at home.”

It’s too bad that Froch couldn’t give Ward credit for his brilliance on Saturday because I think he deserves it. He made Green, who is a very good fighter, look really bad and overmatched. I think Froch would have been in serious trouble had he been in the ring with Ward instead of Green. Froch, with his stand up European style of fighting, would have big problems with Ward’s inside fighting ability and wouldn’t have probably struggled badly.