By Scott Gilfoid: IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch is said to be on the verge of dumping his International Boxing Federation 168 pound title this week, perhaps on Tuesday in order to get out of having to defend it against his IBF mandatory challenger James DeGale.
Froch feels that he would prefer to face a big name opponent for his next fight, and he doesn’t see DeGale as being a big enough name to face him. Froch wants to face former WBC 160lb champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, who Froch feels is a pay-per-view worthy opponent for later this year in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Whether that fight can actually take place is unclear, because Chavez Jr’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank has said that he’s going to block his fight due to him still having one more fight on his contract with his company.
Arum is willing to let the Chavez Jr-Froch fight go ahead as the final fight on Chavez Jr’s contract, but it doesn’t look like Chavez Jr plans on going along with Arum’s wishes.
On Tuesday, Froch’s promoter Eddie Hearn will be conducting a press conference in London. Hearn is expected to discuss Froch’s situation at that time.
Froch is currently out of action with an elbow injury that messed up his plans on facing Chavez Jr.
Some boxing fans think Froch is avoiding the DeGale fight due to it being a bad style match-up for the 37-year-old Froch. To be sure, if you look at the guys that Froch has had huge problems with during his career, he’s always struggled against slick boxers.
Andre Dirrell and Andre Ward both made Froch look bad in their fights against him, and even Jermain Taylor had fought fighting like he had two left feet. While I don’t see DeGale as being in the same level as those fighters are, he’s still good enough to give a fighter like Froch huge headaches if a fight between them came off.
DeGale doesn’t have the hand speed, power and boxing skills of guys like Dirrell, Ward and Taylor, but he’s got enough skills to box circles around Froch for 12 rounds.
Hearn is interested in matching DeGale up against #4 IBF George Groves rather than #2 IBF Andre Dirrell. However, Groves made it perfectly clear that he’s interested in facing WBC super middleweight champion Anthony Dirrell next rather than fighting DeGale for a second time.
“It [Groves vs. DeGale] sells and the split is not up to us Paddy [Fitzpatrick]. It’s a vacant title [so it’s] 50/50,” Hearn said via his Twitter account.
I think Hearn is going to need to settle for having DeGale fight Andre Dirrell for the IBF title. You have to wonder why Hearn is so eager to have DeGale face Groves rather than Dirrell. Could it be that he’s worried about his fighter taking an embarrassing loss at the hands of Dirrell?
What’s interesting is that Froch is more interested in facing Chavez Jr, who has been out of commission for an entire year, rather than fighting Genandy Golovkin. The difference between Chavez Jr and Golovkin is like night and day in terms of fan interest in the United States. Chavez Jr has been kind of forgotten about due to him not having accomplished anything in the last three years. Froch fighting Chavez Jr rather than Golovkin is a very odd move and hard to understand.
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