By Scott Gilfoid: I would say can whether Carl Froch (26-1, 20 KO’s) can block Arthur Abraham’s (31-1, 25 KO’s) shots, but I don’t think Froch is much into blocking shots with his low guard, and I expect him to get hit with almost everything that Abraham throws at him on November 27th in their stage 3 Super Six tournament bout at the Hartwall Arena, in Helsinki, Finland. For his part, Abraham is very hard to hit with head shots because of his high guard. He is, however, vulnerable to body shots, as we saw in his loss to Andre Dirrell last March.

But the problem with hitting Abraham with body shots is that he fires back with his big power punches almost immediately. You have to be really fast to avoid getting hit with Abraham’s punches. Dirrell was able to do it for most of the fight because of his lightning fast reflexes and his ability to bend and twist away from Abraham’s punches. It’s doubtful that Froch, with his slow reaction time, will be able to get out of the way of Abraham’s biggest punches.

If Froch take Abraham’s huge shots then he has no problems, but he was busting up in his last fight against Mikkel Kessler in April, and Kessler doesn’t hit nearly as hard as Abraham. Froch isn’t likely going to be discovering any defense by the time he fights Abraham next month, so you have to assume Froch is going to be using his face to block Abraham’s biggest shots instead of his gloves. Froch has never been hit as hard as he’s going to be hit by Abraham.

Froch has been staggered in his last three fights by Jermain Taylor, Dirrell and Kessler. Abraham could be the one to put Froch down and keep him there for the 10 count. It wouldn’t be a surprise to me if Froch is laid out pretty on the canvas early in the fight, with blood dripping from his beak and his eyes both shut with an out to lunch sign on them. It will be sad because Froch will finally be exposed once and for all, but it will good therapy for him because he’ll finally realize that he needs to learn how to guard his head from incoming.