Froch: I’ll beat Golovkin up!

By Boxing News - 05/21/2015 - Comments

froch552By Scott Gilfoid: On Wednesday, former IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch’s promoter Eddie Hearn revealed that he’s in discussions with the management for IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) for a fight between Froch and Golovkin to be staged in the UK at Wembley Stadium, in London.

Golovkin would move up to 168 to take the fight instead of Froch coming down in weight to help accommodate Golovkin, who is a small middleweight. We’re talking about a fighter who could easily fight in the junior middleweight division like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez does in order to gain an advantage.

Froch, 37, is confident that he’ll be able to walk through any of Golovkin’s shots in order to deliver his own punches. In fact, Froch thinks he’ll score a knockout over Golokvin. It’s obviously hard to believe given how poor Froch looked in his first fight against George Groves in 2013.

Honestly, Froch hadn’t faced a quality fighter since 2011 when he lost to Andre Ward. You can’t really count Froch’s fights against Yusaf Mack, an inexperienced Groves, and his fights against Mikkel Kessler and Lucian Bute. Kessler and Bute looked like shot fighters by the time Froch them in 2012 and 2013.

“If I fight Golovkin, I will back him up, take what he’s got and beat him up,” Froch said to the Dailymail.co.uk.

It sounds like Froch is thinking that Golovkin will fight a stupid fight like Groves and Bute did against Froch. Both of those guys made huge mistakes by letting Froch back them up to the ropes, and then finding themselves trapped there. Golovkin probably isn’t going to make those foolish mistakes against a fighter like Froch. Golovkin doesn’t let his opposition back him up against the ropes.

If his opponents try to back him up, he steps to the side to prevent that, or he simply stands his ground and lands huge shots that causes his opposition to have second thoughts about trying to get him to back up. It’s usually Golovkin that is backing his opponents up. Given that Golovkin is a bigger puncher than Froch with superior accuracy and defensive skills, I’d say it’s going to be Froch who winds up getting backed up in this fight, not Golovkin.

Having the Froch-Golovkin fight take place in the UK presents some problems as far as the time schedule for when it would be televised in the United States. HBO, who televises Golovkin’s fights in America, isn’t going to want to put up huge money for a fight between those two fighters if the fight will wind up being shown in the afternoon in America. That wouldn’t work because the ratings wouldn’t be big enough to make it worthwhile.

The Froch vs. Golovkin fight is a potentially big one, but it wouldn’t be big for HBO if the fight winds up being televised during the daytime hours in the U.S. For it to be big, it has to be televised at night during the normal fight times of 6 PM to 10 PM.

Golovkin’s promoters at K2 Promotions is going to have to work out the time issues for a Froch-Golovkin fight for it to be worth it to them. I mean, this isn’t like one of Golovkin’s Monte Carlo fights where he goes over there to Monaco and wipes out a little known fighter in a simple fight. This is a much bigger event, and it won’t work unless the fight can be televised live during the primetime hours by HBO.

“It would be massive and we can fill Wembley again,” Hearn said to the Dailymail.co.uk. “Given Carl’s interest, we have already opened negotiations with Golovkin’s people and they are very keen.”

Putting the fight in Wembley Stadium sounds good. Golovkin would be giving Froch both the home country and the weight advantage in the fight. You’ve got to figure that the purse split will greatly favor Froch as well. With Golovkin’s punching power, I don’t think it would matter even if they staged it in Froch’s hometown of Nottingham, UK, because Golovkin would turn the judges into spectators with his power, and not given them a chance to score the fight. The referee would likely be a spectator as well. I don’t think it would help Froch if he fouled Golovkin like he did Andre Dirrell because Golovkin will likely punch his lights out before the fouling starts bothering him.



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