By William Mackay: Since being beaten by Mikkel Kessler and losing his WBC super middleweight belt, Carl Froch hasn’t seemed like the same fighter he once was. Whereas before Froch was incredibly confident of his skills and unafraid to fight anywhere on Earth, he is now bellyaching constantly about not wanting to fight his next Super Six tournament opponent Arthur Abraham this place or that place. Froch has already rejected Germany, Sweden and now Majorca for fights locations.

Froch thinks he can’t win a decision in Germany, and thinks Majorica, Spain is too hot. But what is missing from Froch is his fearlessness and self belief that he can win no matter where the fight takes place. Usually a fighter that’s calling the shots is a champion. However, Froch no longer holds down a title after losing his belt to Kessler by a 12 round decision in April.

But it seems like Froch still has a title by the way he’s refusing to fight Abraham in various locations offered to him. Where Froch is getting his power advantage is that he’s been threatening to pull out of the Super Six tournament if he’s forced to fight in a location that he’s not happy with. This makes Froch hold the power if he’s willing to pull out of the tournament altogether and leave them scrambling for another replacement.

The tournament already lost one of the popular fighters when Jermain Taylor pulled out recently after being stopped in the 12th round by Abraham last October. The replacement, Allan Green, isn’t nearly as well known and popular as Taylor. However, Green may be a better fighter than Taylor at this point, so this might work out after all.

Froch tasted defeat for the first time against Kessler and hasn’t liked the taste at all. Froch, instead of being a good sport about it and giving credit to Kessler for a job well done, has complained bitterly, saying that he thinks he would have won had the fight taken place in Nottingham, England. It didn’t, so let’s hope that Froch can get past this loss and accept one of the venues offered up to him by Sauerland Events, the promotional company of Abraham.

I think Froch would have lost the Kessler in most countries of the world, maybe even Nottingham. Froch just messed up when he stopped fighting in the middle of the bout and seemed tired. But he isn’t going to get any guarantee of great judging if the fight takes place in whatever location he wants it to. There’s a good possibility that the judges won’t have any effect at all on the outcome if Froch gets starched.

I’m sure the thought has never crossed Froch’s mind, but he needs to start thinking about it, because Abraham is a huge puncher and he’s hurt both of his Super Six tourney opponents with mean right hands. Granted, the shot he hit Andre Dirrell with was after Dirrell slipped on the canvas, but it was still a big shot. Froch, with his nonexistent defense, will give Abraham a lifetimes’ worth of opportunities to land his big shots when they fight.

If Froch doesn’t have the steel chin that some people think he has, then he’s going to probably get knocked out by Abraham. The venue, the judges won’t even matter at that point. Froch might as well have fought in Germany and saved himself stress in his needless moaning about the fight locations in that case.