By Thomas Cowan: After Carl Froch retained his IBF/WBA super middleweight champions retained his belts by knocking out arch-enemy George Groves in front of 80,000 people at Wembley, he said he wanted to fight in Las Vegas, the fight capital of the world, against popular Mexican slugger Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Many suggested Froch should want to put right his only unavenged defeat, to WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward.
Ward schooled Froch and in their WBA/WBC unification fight at Boardwalk Hall in 2011. The fight left no doubt as to who is the better fighter. Since that fight however, Froch has violently destroyed unbeaten Lucian Bute to take the IBF title and easily stopped a Yusaf Mack in a stay-busy fight. He then beat Mikkel Kessler to avenge his previous close defeat to him, in a fight of the year candidate. He then stopped unbeaten George Groves, albeit controversially after a poor performance, but left no doubt 6 months later, brutally knocking Groves out.
All fights have been sellouts, the last 3 being on pay-per-view in the UK earning Froch around $20 million collectively. Ward has since beaten a weight-drained Chad Dawson who has no business fighting at 168lbs (although it should be noted neither did Yusaf Mack) and beating Edwin Rodriguez in what became a non-title bout after Rodriguez failed to make weight, making around 20% of what Froch has earned since their fight. His activity has been hampered by injury and mainly promotional issues.
So, after Froch knocked out Groves and called out Chavez, the calls of “Why doesn’t he want to fight Ward?” were ridiculous. It’s the same reason nobody wants to see Floyd Mayweather fight Juan Manuel Marquez. Both are great fighters, but nobody needs to see that again because there’s only one winner. The only difference is Mayweather’s fans don’t ridicule Marquez for not wanting a rematch because Mayweather has options and Ward has none. Even if he does eventually sort out his promotional issues and return to the ring, he won’t move up to light heavyweight to fight Sergey Kovalev, Froch can make more money fighting Chavez and the money isn’t there to make a Gennady Golovkin fight.
The Ward fight is one that Froch would have little chance of winning and there risk doesn’t match the reward. There’s more money in a Chavez fight or a fight with #1 challenger James DeGale and similar money in fights with Gennady Golovkin or Kessler, although I have no interest in seeing a third fight with Kessler coming off over a year of inactivity. There is zero need for a rematch as the first fight wasn’t controversial or entertaining.
Froch
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