By Scott Gilfoid: IBF super middleweight champion Carl Froch expects that he’ll look good tonight in beating Yusaf Mack at the Nottingham Arena in front of 9000 screaming Brits. For Froch’s sake he better hope so because he has a lot riding on this fight. If he loses he can forget about fighting Andre Ward and Mikkel Kessler.

Froch may still fight Lucian Bute in a rematch, because as Froch’s promoter Eddie Hearn recently said that Froch is contractually obligated to face Bute again, but facing just Bute isn’t what Froch had in mind. He and his promoter Hearn want 2013 to be a big year of rematches for Froch.

That can’t happen if he gets knocked out cold by Mack. Froch’s rematches would then be against Mack and Bute in 2013, not against Kessler and Ward. Those guys won’t want to fight Froch if he gets beaten by Mack because you can’t sell rematches against him at that point.

Froch said to Sky Sports Ringside “[I’m going to] use my jab, use my boxing skills, jab him, and in the later rounds I’m going to take him out. Let’s be honest. The Cobra [Froch] is going to defend his title in style.”

Oh my, Froch is starting to sound a little cocky, isn’t he? The ego seems to be soaring for Froch. I sure hope he’s not underestimating the American talent because Mack has tremendous power in both hands and I rate his power as better than Froch’s. I also think Mack’s hand speed is better as well, but that kind of goes without saying because Froch doesn’t have much speed. The only thing that Mack needs to do is take a page out of the playbooks of Andre Dirrell and Andre Ward, both of whom gave Froch tremendous problems with their fast combination punching down the middle.

This will look bad if Froch gets knocked out by Mack or even stunned. With the way that Froch has been talking he’ll look bad if he struggles to win the fight. Mack doesn’t have any pressure on him at all in this fight because nothing is expected of him.