By Scott Gilfoid: If you look at the one constant in Carl Froch’s previous losses to Andre Ward, Mikkel Kessler and his questionable win over Andre Dirrell, Froch faced fighters that got off to a quick start against him and put him behind in the first half of the fight. It was that case in each of those fights where Froch started off too slowly for one reason or another and was forced to battle hard to try and catch up after he was well behind in the fight.
In the Dirrell fight, I had Froch losing the first five rounds of the fight, and almost to the point where he would need a knockout to win the fight. He eventually got the win, but it was at home in Nottingham, UK, and a lot of boxing fans felt that Froch didn’t do enough to win and should have been penalized repeatedly for his fouling in the fight. Even with Froch getting away with body slamming Dirrell in the 5th, holding and hitting and tagging him with rabbit punches, I still had Dirrell winning 8 rounds to 3 with 1 even. It was a commanding decision by Dirrell, but he didn’t get it, and the fight reminded me a lot of the Brandon Rios vs. Richard Abril bout from last weekend.
If Bute can jump out ahead against Froch, he’ll be able to force Froch to fight with desperation instead of intelligence. Bute will then be able to set him up for his big uppercuts and hard body shots. I can see Bute stopping Froch if he starts fighting like he’s lost his senses completely.
I saw Froch looking discouraged in his fights against Kessler and Ward when those two fighters jumped out to a quick lead on him. That tells me that he gets down on himself rather than staying calm and clicking off on different adjustments he needs to make. Boxing is like chess, and you’re not supposed to get frustrated if one thing isn’t working. Both the Kessler and Ward fights were winnable if Froch had been able to mentally switch over to a different tactic early on. That’s where Froch gave away most of his rounds. In the Kessler fight, Froch needed to go after him immediately instead of showing too much respect in the early going. By letting Kessler lead in the early part of the fight, Froch got behind early and had to play catch-up from then on. With Ward, Froch didn’t use his jab and wasn’t fighting hard enough from the very start. He needed to get angry and turn it physical from the outset instead of waiting until later in the fight to go mental on Ward. He procrastinated and ended up getting behind in the fight and it cost him.
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