By William Mackay: WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (27-1, 20 KO’s) badly wants to fight his next Super Six tournament fight against Glen Johnson (51-14-2, 35 KO’s) at home in Nottingham, England rather than the United States.

Froch, 33, is reportedly willing to pay Showtime $250,000 in order to get his June 4th bout at home. It’s currently scheduled to take place at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Froch already fought once at home during the Super Six competition, beating Andre Dirrell by a deeply controversial 12 round split decision. Few people thought that Froch won that fight.

Froch is favored to beat Johnson, so it really doesn’t matter if the takes place in Nottingham or the U.S. I can see Froch being willing to pay $250,000 to fight Andre Ward in Nottingham, because that’s a fight that Froch will likely lose.

Perhaps having the fight in Nottingham will tip the decision in Froch’s favor, as we saw in the Froch-Dirrell fight. But it seems like a big waste of money for Froch to pay huge cash for his fight against 42-year-old Johnson to take place in the UK.

Froch had this to say about the venue at thisisnottingham.co.uk: “I’ve offered to pay them [Showtime] $250,000 out of my share of the gate in Nottingham and I’m just waiting for them to get back to me. I’ll be gutted if I have to fight in America…It would be great to have home advantage in front of 9000 fans in Nottingham.”

I smell fear. I wonder if Froch is worried about losing to Johnson? If history is any guide, fighting at home in Nottingham would be a huge plus for Froch. It could be the difference between winning and losing.

I personally don’t like the idea of a fighter paying to get a fight in his own home city, especially one which already won a questionable decision earlier in the tournament like Froch. I hope Showtime doesn’t go along with this because then we might see a repeat of this in the finals with Froch and Ward. This is really off putting to me.