By Scott Gilfoid: The team for unbeaten super middleweight talent Thomas Oosthuizen (20-0-1, 13 KO’s) has opted to say no to a November fight against International Boxing Federation (IBF) Carl Froch (29-2, 21 KO’s) and instead focus on fighting in the United States to continue to build a large following for the 6’4′ South African Oosthuizen.

There was no particular reason given for turning down the fight against Froch but one can speculate that they may not have liked the cash offer or the idea of having to take their chances of trying to win a decision against Froch in Nottingham, UK, Froch’s home arena. It might have put the young, talented Oosthuizen in a situation where he might have needed a knockout to ensure that he got the win over there, and no one wants to put a young talent like Oosthuizen in a situation like that.

Oosthuizen’s manager Brian Mitchell said to Sowetanlive.co.za “We’ve turned down that fight. Oosthuizen is a potential superstar…It’s proper that [promoter] Lou Dibella will feature him in Shobox. The American boxing public just loves Tommy.”

I think it’s a good idea for Oosthuizen not to take the fight with Froch, because he would have possibly had to knock Froch cold to ensure that he walked out of the Nottingham arena with the IBF title in his possession. Unless Froch was willing to fight in a neutral venue, it was probably a terrible idea to take the fight with Froch in Nottingham.

Sadly, we’ve already seen controversy from a visiting fighter Andre Dirrell who came to Nottingham in October 2009, and lost a 12 round split decision to Froch in the Super Six tournament. The thing is Dirrell looked marvelous in that fight, making Froch miss all night long and scoring nicely with jabs, left hooks and right hands. Dirrell had Froch staggered in the 10th and did enough to deserve a lopsided decision on my personal scoring of the fight.