By Daniel James: After watching another truly great domestic dust up between the British legend Carl Froch and one of the best up and coming prospects George Groves, the controversial stoppage almost immediately had me wondering, “what about a rematch?”. Perhaps this was naive of me, seeing as how unlikely such a rematch would be.
Carl Froch in particular, still has a lot of options to consider, a mandatory defense of his IBF title against Lucian Bute in Canada, a big money fight with the Mexican Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, an opportunity to avenge his only other loss to the Olympic gold medalist Andre Ward, the power punching sensation Gennady Golovkin or even a catch weight fight with light heavy weight IBF champ Bernard Hopkins. However, if a rematch were to happen, who would be at the advantage?
For Carl Froch, the advantage would be that he now knows he’d be in the ring with a guy that can not only hit him almost at will, but also hurt him. this would perhaps play into his hands, because he would be more focused on his boxing and not just on finishing off this young pretender in George Groves.
Froch proved that he can box well behind his long reaching jab against Kessler in their second fight, for about 4 or 5 rounds of that fight Kessler seemed confused and unable to get around it to land punches. Froch through out the jab a thew times last Saturday, but with not real snap or intent, perhaps because he lost focus after being knocked down in the first round, and was only looking to avenge his pride with clumsy swings going forward. If he respected Groves’ power, however, he might have started the round smarter and that might not have happened.
An obvious disadvantage for Froch would simply be his age. He’s 36 now and although after the Bute fight many people thought age didn’t matter to him, it clearly does. Especially because a rematch would mean putting his body through yet another tiring training camp to fight a man 11 years his junior. He also won’t have the overwhelming support going into the fight that he did in Manchester (especially if you saw his post fight interview).
For Groves, a rematch could mean he’ll need a new game plan. Personally I thought he boxed almost perfectly to his game plan against Froch. He moved behind his jab using it to set up bigger punches, he kept center of the ring, meaning that Froch was constantly on the back foot where he is least dangerous, as soon as Groves felt the ropes at his back he would throw a mean jab-cross combo to forced Froch back, and whenever Froch pushed forward Groves would plant his feet and tie up.
A rematch may go differently, because the hidden genius behind Carl Froch is his trainer Rob Mccracken, and he would no doubt prepared Froch for these tactics in the event of a rematch. An advantage for Groves in a rematch however, is that he gained a lot of respect from fans after this fight, so he will come in with less nerves and the pressure of those dreaded boos.
Personally, I think a rematch would favor Groves more, because of the reasons above but also because despite the possible need to change his tactics, at 25 Groves is still able to adapt very well. If you saw his fight against Degale and compared that to this past Saturday, you’ll know exactly what I mean. Let me know what you think and also what you thought of my article; It’s my first so go easy on me.
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