By Scott Gilfoid: IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch’s promoter Eddie Hearn seems to be a little tone deaf in regards to the criticism his fighter is getting about him being more interested in facing former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr (48-1-1, 32 KOs) than he is in facing Gennady Golovkin (31-0, 28 KOs).
Hearn thinks that the boxing public really want to see Froch fight Chavez Jr in a bad way. Froch has received a massive amount of heat from fans due to him being interested in facing the ring rusty Chavez Jr, whose career has been in stall since his loss to Sergio Martinez in 2012, rather than Froch getting in the ring with the unbeaten Golovkin so that he could really test himself.
“Chavez is fighting Fonfara in April. Presumably that’s [Froch vs. Chavez Jr fight] still there. Hopefully we can get it made. The Chavez fight is a great fight and a lot of people want to see it,” Hearn said via Fighthype. “Carl Froch has earned the right to fight whoever he wants, but the public wants to see certain fights; that’s Chavez. Golovkin’s a great fight. He [Froch] also needs to know that it has to be a fight that people want to see.”
Froch is currently nursing an injured elbow that he hurt somehow. He’s waiting on Chavez Jr to get his catch-weight fight against light heavyweight Andrzej Fonfara (26-3, 15 KOs) on April 18th out of the way before he attempts to face him in the summer, or at least that’s what Froch and Hearn are hoping for.
It’s still up in the air whether the Chavez Jr-Fonfara fight will even take place at all, because Chavez Jr’s former [or current] promoter Bob Arum is saying he’s going to block the Chavez Jr vs. Fonfara fight from happening, because Chavez Jr still owes his company Top Rank one more fight. Chavez Jr has already been out of the ring since March of 2014.
If his fight against Fonfara gets blocked, we could be seeing him miss parts of 2015, or maybe even the entire year if he continues to stay inactive. If Arum is able to block the Chavez Jr-Fonfara fight from happening, then you can bet he’ll be able to block the Chavez Jr-Froch fight. In that case, Froch will have be sitting around for nothing waiting for a fight that can’t happen until after Chavez Jr finishes his commitment to Top Rank. Of course, he could always take the fight against Froch as part of fulfilling that commitment with Top Rank, but I doubt that Chavez Jr is going to do that. It would definitely make Arum happy if Chavez Jr were to let the Froch fight be his final fight with his company.
I don’t think boxing fans want to see the Froch-Chavez Jr fight as much as Hearn thinks they do. I see them being a heck of a lot more interested in seeing Froch fight Golovkin than seeing him fight Chavez Jr.
On one hand you’ve got a guy who was badly exposed by Sergio Martinez and who has looked terrible ever since in his two fights against middleweight journeyman Brian Vera. On the other hand, you’ve got an unbeaten Gennady Golovkin, who is quickly becoming one of the most popular fighters in the United States, and who has a seven-year knockout streak going. You tell me which is the better fight – Froch vs. Chavez Jr or Froch vs. Golovkin? I think it’s pretty obvious that the bigger fight is the Froch-Golovkin fight, as it matches the steel-chinned Froch against arguably the hardest puncher in the middleweight division in Golovkin.
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