By Scott Gilfoid: IBF super middleweight champion Carl Froch (29-2, 21 KO’s) appears to be winding down his 10-year pro career and his fight against American slugger Yusaf Mack (31-4-2, 17 KO’s) next month on November 17th could be the 35-year-old Froch’s last fight in Nottingham, England. Froch plans on fighting Lucian Bute, Mikkel Kessler and Andre Ward after the Mack fight and those fights most likely will end up in those fighter’s countries.

Froch said to Sky Sports News “If the Bute fight happens it will be in Canada and rematches with Ward and Kessler could well happen in America and Denmark, so this could well be my last fight in Nottingham.”

I wouldn’t bet on it. I don’t buy it. I see Froch being like most fighters that hint about retirement. In many cases it’s not a retirement that lasts, so I see this as probably empty words. We’ll see. At any rate we may be seeing Froch back in Nottingham a lot sooner than he thinks if he gets spanked by Mack next month or or Bute gets beaten by Russian Denis Grachev this Saturday.

You can’t make the Bute-Froch II fight if either of those guys lose their next fights, and there’s a decent chance one or both could lose. I think Bute is a tremendous talent but he’s fighting a HUGE puncher in Grachev, who is a natural light heavyweight with a big right hand. If Bute couldn’t handle Froch’s right hands then he’ll be in a world of hurt against Grachev as soon as he touches Bute’s chin for the first time. Bute has got to knock him out before he connects with his big right hand power shots, because if he leaves Grachev in there for any length of time he could mess up all Bute’s big plans for the Froch fight.

There are only 500 tickets left for the Froch-Mack fight for the Nottingham Arena with supposedly over 9000 tickets sold.

Froch said to Sky Sports “The noise when I walk into the ring will be deafening.”

Froch is hoping to get an edge from the loud crowd noise in the fight. My view is if Froch needs the crowd to help him win this fight against Mack then he’s in big trouble because Mack doesn’t care about crowd noise having often been the one that’s had to travel to other fighter’s hometowns. Mack isn’t a fighter that’s had his own way his entire career fighting at home. He’s been a traveler and he’s well above being intimidated by loud crowds.

If anything, the hostile crowd nose seems to encourage him to fight harder. So Froch can stop yapping about how the crowd will have an impact on this fight because it won’t. If Froch can’t handle Mack’s big power shots then the screaming crowd won’t be able to be there in the ring to take the shots for Froch or to pick him up after he gets knocked on his backside.