By Scott Gilfoid: The Carl Froch – Mikkel Kessler II rematch has been approved by promoters Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport and Sauerland Events. However, it still has to be approved by the International Boxing Federation before it can go ahead.
Hearn has to submit the paper work to them so that Froch can bypass his #1 IBF mandatory challenger Adonis Stevenson. The only reason the IBF will allow Froch to skip the dangerous Stevenson is because this is a unification bout and they give more importance to those types of fights for some reason.
I think it’s a bad deal for challengers because they work their backsides off only to see a champion skip out on defending it against them by taking unification bouts. However, it’s likely the IBF will grant Froch permission to take the fight rematch with Kessler. But with that said, Froch is going to have to decide whether he really wants to keep the IBF title if he somehow beats Kessler because Froch is already talking about wanting to fight either Lucian Bute or Andre Ward next.
In other words, it appears he has no interest in defending his title against Stevenson. In that case Froch will have to either vacate his IBF title or have it stripped from him because he can’t bypass his mandatory fight after fight without end. One possible scenario will see is Froch vacating the IBF strap if he beats Kessler for his WBA title, and then Froch can go ahead and fight Ward or Bute without having to worry about the incredibly dangerous Stevenson.
But what’s really bad is if Froch doesn’t defend his title against Stevenson next it will mean that he was just using the IBF strap as negotiation took to get a better deal during negotiations with Kessler because a fighter is always better off if they have a title in their possession during negotiations, especially when it’s against another champion.
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