By Sean McDaniel: WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch and WBA champion Andre Ward meet in the finals of the Super Six tournament on October 29th. Froch comes into the fight having beaten Andre Dirrell, Arthur Abraham and Glen Johnson.

He’s shown good power but only so-so boxing skills. Ward has looked much more impressive in defeating Mikkel Kessler, Allan Green and Abraham. What Ward lacks in power he more than makes up for with his inside fighting ability.

This is an area where Froch is completely lacking. He’s a good fighter on the outside and at medium range where he can control many of his opponents with his jab and counter punching ability.

However, Froch hasn’t shown that he can fight on the inside. The only fight where he was pressed to fight in close was his narrow 12 round split decision win over Dirrell in 2009, and Froch looked underwhelming in that fight. His inside fighting ability was essentially reduced to holding & hitting and throwing rabbit punches.

Froch didn’t look at comfortable and wasn’t able to throw power shots. This is where he could have problems against Ward, because the American is going to be forcing Froch to fight inside knowing that he’s not skilled in that area.

Froch is going to have to learn to on the fly, because Ward is going to put him into a situation where he’s going to have to sink or swim on the inside. Froch won’t just be able to hold and bang Ward on the back of the head with a free hand.

That won’t be permitted in this fight and will likely get Froch penalized. Even on the outside, Ward is the superior fighter with much better hand speed. Ward has an excellent jab and a fast straight right hand.

This is going to be hard for Froch to get out of the way of because of Ward’s quickness. Kessler, who is a lot faster than Froch, wasn’t able to get out of the way of Ward’s straight rights.

If Kessler couldn’t do it, Froch will likely get hit a lot by them as well. And with Ward falling into Froch forcing him to fight on the inside after tagging him with long right hand, Froch is going be in deep trouble in this fight unless he shows something new.