By Scott Gilfoid: Eddie Hearn, the promoter for IBF/WBA super middleweight Carl Froch, doesn’t see any point in putting Froch back in the ring with WBA 168 lb. champion Andre Ward for a rematch so that Froch can try and avenge his loss to the talented American, because Hearn doesn’t see Ward as bringing much to the table in terms of commercial value.
In other words, Hearn doesn’t believe that a Froch-Ward 2 fight would be a big deal in the UK because of Ward not being a huge star in the United States. Hearn feels that the British boxing public would rather see Froch fight George Groves than they would seeing him get in the ring with Ward.
“With Andre Ward, he couldn’t sell out his living room,” Hearn said. “So, you know, he’ll be tuning in tomorrow night. He keeps saying he should fight the winner. Well there will be 80,000 at Wembley there tomorrow night and the only place Andre Ward is going to see a crowd like that is on TV. He’s an unbelievable fighter; one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world. Commercially, unfortunately, he means very little. You know, if you ask these people here what ‘would you rather see, Froch-Groves or Froch-Ward;’ you know, the big domestic fights for me is where it’s at.”
Well, there it is. Hearn basically justifying him choosing not to put Froch back in with Ward in a rematch, even though Froch really needs a rematch in order to solidly his legacy. Nigel Benn fought Chris Eubanks and Steve Collins again after they beat him, so why wouldn’t Froch be looking to fight Ward again?
I agree that the UK boxing fans would rather see Froch fight Groves than Ward, but I think it’s for a different reason. With Froch fighting Groves, the fans know that Froch has a decent chance of winning that fight due to his advantages in size, stamina and experience. Fans want to see Froch win, and it’s worthwhile for them to purchase tickets to see him fight if they feel his chances of winning are good. But in a Ward-Froch fight, fans obviously would know from watching their previous fight that Froch’s chances of winning would be quite low to the point where the fans would be in a situation where they would be paying good money and going through the hassle of traveling to see a fight live only to see Froch get worked over by Ward for 12 rounds.
It seems pretty obvious that the attraction of seeing Froch win rather than lose would be a lot more for fans. I mean, it’s like if someone had the choice of seeing a good money with a happy ending and a bad one where you’re going to be upset about it, I think the person would save his money by not seeing the bad one. A Ward-Froch rematch would promise to have a very, very bad ending for Froch, especially given that Ward would have two healthy hands to dominate Froch in the rematch than just the one hand that he whipped him with in their previous fight in 2011. Ward beat Froch with just one hand the last time they fought due to Ward coming into the fight with a fractured left hand.
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