By Scott Gilfoid: Well, it looks like IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch (33-2, 24 KOs) is going to start making other plans for his big Las Vegas fight because it doesn’t look like he’s going to be able to get a bout against former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr (48-1-1, 32 KOs) for that date.
Chavez Jr’s current promoter Bob Arum is saying that the Mexican fighter still has one fight under his contract with Arum’s company Top Rank. It’s possible that Arum might agree to make the Chavez Jr-Froch fight, but it would need to be with Arum promoting the fight.
“It’s not going to happen (Chavez Jr.-Froch) because Chavez is under contract with us, period. And until he honors the contract with us no fight is going to happen without everybody being subject to litigation,” Arum said.
Chavez Jr hasn’t fought since March of 2014, and it’s quite possible that he’ll continue to sit outside of the ring without fighting. If he does decide to fight, he’s going to have to deal with his promoter Arum for that fight.
What’s interesting about all of this is that Froch’s promoter Eddie Hearn has been talking up a Froch-Chavez Jr fight lately, as if the fight is going to happen in 2015. Hearn has said that it’s a better fight than Gennady Golovkin vs. Froch, which is a far easier fight to make. It would seem that Hearn has been talking too soon.
If Froch is interested in sticking around until Chavez Jr’s contract has expired with Top Rank, then he can certainly have his fight under the bright lights of Las Vegas, but it doesn’t look like that fight is going to take place in early 2015. This means that Froch is going to need to take another opponent while he waits for Chavez Jr unless he just wants to sit idle without fighting until Chavez Jr’s contract obligations are fulfilled.
“It [Froch-Golovkin] doesn’t pay the same amount of money as the Chavez fight,” Hearn said to IFL TV. “It doesn’t pay anywhere near the same amount of money. It’s [Froch-Golovkin] not pay-per-view on HBO. Froch-Golovkin isn’t pay-per-view in America. In the U.S, a Brit vs. a Kazakh is not pay-per-view yet. In 12 months’ time the fight might be pay-per-view. When you get a fight that’s going to pay 40 to 50 percent more than the Golovkin fight, then you have to pursue the Chavez fight. I think it’s a great fight, Froch-Chavez. It’s all about the money. It’s a huge fight. Froch-Chavez is on another level.”
As you can see, Hearn is really working up a lather about the Froch vs. Chavez fight. Too bad that reality is going to get in the way of Hearn making that fight in early 2015. This means that Froch can either sit on his backside waiting and hoping that Chavez Jr will get free in the near future so that he can have his Las Vegas fight, or Froch can do the sensible thing and look to fight Golovkin, Andre Dirrell, Anthony Dirrell, James DeGale or Andre Ward. Those are the only choices that Froch has, because he’s not going to move up to light heavyweight and risk his hide against Adonis Stevenson or Sergey Kovalev.
Of the fights that Froch can realistically make in early 2015, the Golovkin fight is likely the biggest money-maker of the bunch. Hearn may be eager to make the Froch-Chavez Jr fight, but he’s going to need to settle for the Golovkin fight unless Froch is going to sit idle waiting on Chavez Jr or retire. Believe me, it’s going to look bad if Froch sits for most of 2015 while he waits on the Chavez Jr fight instead of staying active.
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