By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (26-1, 20 KO’s) will start his long grueling 10 week training camp on July 26th, as he prepares for his October 2nd fight against former middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (31-1, 25 KO’s) in their stage 3 Super Six tournament bout at the Chapiteau de Fontvieille, Principauté de Monaco, Monaco. Froch, 33, after weeks of haggling to find what he considers to be a neutral venue, finally found a fight location that satisfied him when Monaco was agreed upon for the Abraham fight. Froch wanted no part of a fight against Abraham in his adopted country of Germany.
Froch felt that he wouldn’t have been able to win a decision there if the fight were close in any way. Froch lost his last Super Six tournament fight against Mikkel Kessler in Denmark. Froch was left feeling bitter and angry afterwards, feeling that he should have been given the decision by the judges. Never mind that virtually the entire world felt that the right decision was handed down by giving Kessler then win. Froch still feels that he would have won the fight had it taken place in his home city of Nottingham, England, where Froch had already won a highly controversial 12 round decision over American Andre Dirrell in the first fight of the Super Six tourney last October.
While training for the Abraham fight, Froch is going to hole up in a hotel for 10 weeks rather than living at home in order to avoid distractions. Whether it will make any difference remains to be seen. One thing is for sure, though, Froch cannot afford to lose again if he wants to make it to the semi finals of the Super Six tourney. This is do or die for Froch. If he loses, he’s back to square one, and will be leaving the Super Six tourney without his WBA super middleweight title and will have to look at his options in the division. If Froch can’t beat Kessler, Abraham, and if he’s struggling badly against the talented Dirrell, it may be time for Froch to move up in weight and leave the super middleweight division for the faster guys.
Froch is known for training really hard and keeping track of all the exercises he’s done in his training book. Since Froch ran out of gas in his last fight against Kessler in April, my worry is that Froch may decide to double up and even triple up on his training and exorcizes in hopes that this will enable him to beat Abraham. I can see Froch just working himself down to the bone, exercising like a madman and writing it down in his book to keep track of it all. God, I hope Froch doesn’t that. He’ll end up looking like a human skeleton and have nothing to show for it when Abraham knocks him cold. The last thing I want to hear is some more excuses for the loss.
At 33, sometimes a fighter slows down, gets old and doesn’t have the same energy that they used to have. This could be the case for Froch. He could just be getting old on us. So if Froch goes hog wild and starts ramping up his training and exercising into high gear, not sleeping and just training like a dog, I think it’s going to hurt the guy more than help him. He’s just got to pace himself more, try to cover up his head and stop fighting with his hands hanging down by his knees. I couldn’t fight like that and I wouldn’t even try.
In my days of Karate training, my instructor would have had me doing punishment exercises until midnight if I fought like that. Since Froch is clearly not the fasted fighter you’ll ever see, he’s going to start holding his guard up in front of his head. Even if Froch can’t react quick enough to block anything, at least some of the shots will hit Froch’s gloves and save him from possibly knocked cold early in the fight.
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