By Scott Gilfoid: IBF super middleweight champion Carl Froch (30-2, 22 KO’s) doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that he was schooled by Andre Ward in a 12 round decision loss in December 2011. Froch feels that Ward spoiled his way to victory instead of fighting him toe-to-toe in a manner that he feels is manlier.
Froch said to Sky Sports “I’m not worried too much about Andre Ward. He is what he is. He’s not entertaining. You don’ feel like you’ve been in a fight against Andre Ward. The Kessler fight is a proper man’s mano a mano fight. That fight could take place on the cobbles. The boxing public is in for a treat. It’s a fight I need to have, a fight I need to win for me to be able to settle down.”
It’s interesting how Froch has convinced himself that his loss to Ward was no big deal because it wasn’t the toe-to-toe brawl that he was hoping it would be. Froch says he felt he wasn’t in a fight, but if you look at his face afterwards with his badly swollen nose, I don’t see how Froch can say he wasn’t in a fight.
I think Froch took more damage in the Ward fight than he did against Kessler in 2010, so how is it that that Froch feels he wasn’t in a proper fight. The name of the game in boxing is to hit and not be hit, and that was how the game was designed from the start. Even Froch likes to avoid getting hit. Why did he choose to fight Arthur Abraham at a distance instead of toe-to-toe? If you remember that fight, Froch wasn’t fighting toe-to-toe with Abraham. So I guess it was okay for Froch to stay out of range and avoid getting hit, but it wasn’t okay for Ward. How about Froch’s fight with Glen Johnson?
Why didn’t Froch fight Johnson toe-to-toe the entire 12 rounds? I remember seeing Froch fighting on the outside frequently and not going toe-to-toe with him in the traditional sense. So it was okay for Froch to not fight a proper man’s fight with Johnson and Abraham, but it wasn’t okay for Ward to fight that way too? It just seems like Froch has different expectations for others that he doesn’t have for himself.
Maybe Froch doesn’t have a clear picture of how he actually fights because if he did he wouldn’t blame Ward at all for avoiding getting hit because he’s doing it himself. Why did Froch back off so frequently against Kessler three years ago? If the idea was to go toe-to-toe in the classic primitive sense, then Froch failed miserably because he was backing off all night long when Kessler was getting the better of him in exchanges.
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