By Scott Gilfoid: On October 29th, Andre Ward (24-0, 13 KO’s) and Carl Froch (28-1, 20 KO’s) will square off in the Super Six finals at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The winner of the fight will be an instant star in the super middleweight division and the guy that will be considered by most boxing fans at the number #1 fighter in that weight class.
Some fans will still say that IBF champion Lucian Bute is the guy, but given his habit of facing weaker opposition, he’s really hurt himself in making a case that he belongs in the same class as the winner of the Froch-Ward fight.
Now I’m really hoping that this is a good clean fight between Froch and Ward, but I think it’s going to turn nasty by the fourth or fifth round when things start looking dire for Froch. As we saw in Froch’s fight against Andre Dirrell in October 2009, Froch seemed to get frustrated and angry when he was getting schooled by Dirrell.
Instead of coming up with some different ideas to try and land his punches, which he was missing with over and over again up to that point in the fight, Froch turned it physical and body slammed Dirrell. The referee just stood there, doing nothing. With the referee not enforcing the rules, Froch then continued to foul Dirrell from that point on for much of the fight, landing rabbit punches, holding and hitting and shoving Dirrell’s head down. I saw enough fouls to where I thought Froch should have been disqualified many times over, yet the referee didn’t do a thing. The fight took place in Nottingham, England, Froch’s home city.
In an interview at thesweetscience.com, Virgil Hunter, the trainer for Ward, said “I consider him [Froch] dirty when his back is against the wall and he gets frustrated. When he gets frustrated, he resorts to tactics that are definitely not in the queensbury rules…hitting Andre Dirrell behind the head, and throwing him to the ground. Froch should be professional enough to know how to handle himself in those situations. The bottom line is was that he was able to get away with it. Once he knew that he was able to get away with it, he kept doing it.”
I totally agree Mr. Hunter. Froch plays it clean when he’s dominating someone that he can handle, like Arthur Abraham. But you put him in with Dirrell, and Froch goes wild, fighting like a primitive caveman. I never seen fighting like that before to be honest. I thought I was watching some kind of MMA action but with a professional wrestling aspect to it.
All I can say is I sure hope the referee is on his job on October 29th and is quick to call Froch for his fouls when he gets frustrated by Ward’s talent, because Froch will get frustrated, there’s no doubt about that. Ward is going to be schooling Froch and humiliating him his speed, boxing ability and inside fighting. I can see Froch reverting back to an early primitive level and perhaps grabbing Ward and heaving him with a nifty little body slam. I just hope he doesn’t do something crazy like lift Ward over head and throw him out of the ring like a professional wrestler. Froch got away with a body slam in the Dirrell fight, and since he still hasn’t been penalized yet, we may see him get flashbacks to that fight when Ward starts schooling him the way that Dirrell was.
Comments are closed.