By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (26-1, 20 KO’s) for some reason thinks his speed will be the key to him beating Arthur Abraham (31-1, 25 KO’s) on Saturday night in their Super Six tournament fight at the Hartwall Arena, in Helsinki, Finland. Froch has got to be one of the slowest fighters in the super middleweight division in terms of hand speed. I’m not even talking about the Super Six fighters, because Froch is clearly slower than all of them, including 41-year-old Glen Johnson. This is why it seems so odd that Froch would look at his hand speed as a key for him to beat Abraham. He doesn’t have any, so Froch should be praying he can somehow knock Abraham out or maybe outwork him in this fight.

In an article at the Daily Mirror, Froch had this to say: “In this fight speed and movement is key to success. The power is there anyway. I am not known for fast hands, but I can match anyone for speed. When I fight, I try to nail my opponents to the canvas with big heavy digs so the punches slow down because yuo are putting weight behind them. But I can drop the power, puck the shots and my hands become fast. i’ve done a lot more sparring for this fight, about 200 rounds, so I’m ready.”

I hate to be the one to break this to Froch, but he can’t “Match anyone for speed.” I’ve seen plenty of his fights and seen him throw punches when he wasn’t loading up on his shots, and he still looked painfully slow. It’s as if he’s got a lot of dead fast twitch nerve fighter in his arms and shoulders. He’s really slow. I’ve seen some of Froch’s earlier fights in his career and he was just as slow even then. I think may have been a tad bit faster earlier in his career but not much. His speed isn’t going to be a factor in this fight. What will be is whether his chin holds up under the pounding that Abraham is going to be giving him and whether Froch can out-work Abraham.

At this point in Abraham’s career, he’s only able to fight hard for the last 10 to 20 seconds of every round and he doesn’t really fight with any real urgency until the 10th round. He’s obviously got stamina issues and he doesn’t want to tire himself out because he probably doesn’t have the ability to regenerate after tiring anymore like he used to in the early part of his career. This gives Froch a chance to out-work him if Froch can stay upright and avoid Abraham’s monstrous shots in the last part of every round. I don’t think Froch can, not with his hands hanging down by his knees while he fights. He’s the perfect opponent for Abraham to score a knockout against.