By Scott Gilfoid: Earlier this week, former IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (31-1, 25 KO’s) commented on Carl Froch’s lack of speed in getting in the ring to fight him in their Super Six tournament fight, saying “It’s all mental with him. I think his one and only defeat to Mikkel Kessler is still in the head of Carl Froch. He cannot let go.” Froch hit back yesterday in an article at the thesun.co.uk, with “If anyone has problems in the head it is Abraham. You only have to look at his last fight against Andre Dirrell. He was out-boxed, couldn’t handle it and got himself disqualified.” Froch is talking about Abraham’s 11th round disqualification loss to Dirrell in March of this year, in a fight in which Abraham was well behind in the 11th round and badly in need of a knockout to win.

However, instead of staying calm and going after the knockout, Abraham blasted Dirrell with a big right hand moments after Dirrell had slipped and fallen down. Abraham was subsequently disqualified for the foul. There’s an argument that can be made that Froch should have been disqualified as well for his fight with Dirrell back in October 2009.

Froch fouled Dirrell repeatedly from rounds five until the eleventh, hitting Dirrell with repeated rabbit punches, holding and hitting and even body slamming him in the 5th. None of it led to Froch being penalized. Oddly enough, it was Dirrell who ended up getting points taken away instead of Froch. The fight, by the way, took place in Froch’s home city of Nottingham, England.

Froch was beaten by Mikkel Kessler in a 12 round decision loss in April. Froch thinks he should have won the fight and has complained frequently about the decision, and this is obviously why Abraham thinks that Froch is having a hard time letting go of his loss to Kessler. The weird thing is that few boxing fans agree with Froch about the fight. They generally see the fight as I do and believe that Kessler rightfully won the fight. I see Froch as having lost that fight by at least four rounds. And I also think Froch should have lost his first fight in the Super Six tournament to Dirrell by at six rounds. Froch won that fight by a 12 round split decision. Froch very well could be 0-2 in the Super Six tournament instead of 1-1.

Froch injured his back recently in training and it’s anyone’s guess when Froch’s back will be healed enough for him to fight. There’s talk of Froch being ready by November 27th or December 18th, but you just don’t know. Froch’s ailing back could take a long time for it to heal, and that would be too bad for Abraham. He’s already been out of action for six months and by the time that Froch is ready to fight again, it would be another two to three more months easily.