By Scott Gilfoid: Light heavyweight Yusaf Mack (31-4-2, 17 KO’s) no doubt has been picked out for IBF super middleweight champion Carl Froch (29-2, 21 KO’s) to look good against and beat without too much stress in front of his British fans on November 17th at the Capital FM Arena, in Nottingham, UK. Mack is basically being brought to put up just enough of a fight to make it interesting but not enough to actually beat Froch.

The fact that Mack has been selected from the light heavyweight division to have to melt down to fight Froch suggests that there could possibly be the thought that he’d be weakened enough by coming down in weight to where Froch won’t have to worry too much. To be sure, it’s five years since Mack last fought at super middleweight when he was stopped in the 7th round by Librado Andrade, a Froch-like fighter.

That’s long, long time since Mack last fought at 168, and it potentially could be big problem for him. It’s sad that Mack wasn’t given a catchweight opportunity because it would at least give him a better chance at winning the fight. However, there won’t be a catchweight in this fight. Mack will have to come all the way down to 168 to fight Froch, who will probably be licking his chops at the thought of fighting this guy.

Even though he’s coming down a long ways in weight to make this fight, Mack will still likely have enough power to put a big dent in Froch’s chin if he can land some of his powerful right hands early on before the negative affects of being weight drained start to get to him. Usually weight drained fighters are good for at least one round. After the 1st round, the affects off that weight they’ve taken off starts to get to them and they’re unable to fight effectively. Since Mack doesn’t have a very good chin to begin with it puts more pressure on him to go full throttle in the 1st round to try and destroy Froch as fast as humanly possible.

If I were Mack’s trainer, I’d tell him to open up on Froch both barrels in the 1st round and look to KO him with every shot in a fast start. Being as slow as Froch is, Mack will be able to land at will for the full three minutes of the round. It’ll be up to Froch’s chin to see if he can take the powerful Mack’s big right hands.

If Froch makes it out of the 1st round, then yeah he’ll probably win the fight because Mack will be too weight drained to do much in the remaining rounds. It’s too bad they had to go and pick a light heavyweight and make him melt down to 168 to make this fight. Why couldn’t Eddie Hearn, Froch’s promoter, get a legit super middleweight like Thomas Oosthuizen to fight Froch? At least the guy wouldn’t be weakened like heck in moving down in weight and would have a fighting chance to beat Froch after the 1st round.