Froch wants Groves to beat Jack, thinks it will make him look better

By Boxing News - 08/27/2015 - Comments

groves566By Scott Gilfoid: The retired Carl Froch says he wouldn’t mind it so much if No.1 WBC George Groves (21-2, 16 KOs) defeats WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack (19-1-1, 12 KOs) in their fight in a little over two weeks on September 12th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Froch figures that if Groves defeats Jack, it will help make his own career look better because he whipped Groves twice by knockout in 2013 and 2014. Unfortunately, I don’t see it that way. I mean, if Groves defeats Jack, I don’t the boxing public will give a fig about the victory or about how Froch previously defeated Groves a couple of times.

The Jack vs. Groves fight isn’t considered a big enough deal to give Froch any kind of bounce from it in terms of popularity. Jack is a decent fighter, but he’s clearly not seen as a great one or even close to being great. He’s just some guy that struggled until getting lucky in beating Anthony Dirrell in one of his off nights last April. Had Jack fought the talented Andre Dirrell, who I see as the better of the two Dirrell brothers, I think Jack would have been totally dominated and knocked out.

“I hope George Groves wins the world title out in Vegas,” Froch said via skysports.com. “I want George to become the WBC super-middleweight champion of the world and I also think he can do it…That would make me look even better!”

Nah, it won’t make Froch look any better whether Groves beats Jack or not. I’m afraid that Froch left boxing under a dark cloud due to him not taking the challenge of the smaller IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs). Froch got a lot of fans interested in a Froch-Golovkin fight by some of the comments he made. But when he failed to agree to fight Golovkin, it just made a lot of fans feel that Froch didn’t like his chances in the fight.

There’s a right way and there’s a wrong way of getting out of the sport, I personally believe that Froch got out of the sport the wrong way. He either should have never even mentioned Golovkin’s name, or should have taken the fight and tried his best. I think the fans would have respected Froch more even if he lost to Golovkin, as long as he was willing to go out on his shield rather than quitting in the corner or having his trainer toss in the white towel of surrender. But at this point, I don’t think it helps Froch at all if Groves beats Jack. I don’t see it registering anything at all with the way boxing fans feel about Froch’s career.

I think many of them aren’t going to be able to forget how Froch opted not to fight Golovkin, and how he also chose not to fight IBF super middleweight champion James DeGale. Those are two fights that Froch should have taken before he retired from the sport. If he’d taken those fights, he could have retired without the fans seeing him as a ducker, as some fans obviously do.

“I don’t want to rain on Groves’ parade if he does win but Jack is not the best world champion we’ve seen and he looks to me like a limited opponent,” Froch said.

Jack is a very good fighter, and I think he’s going to win this fight. I don’t see how Groves has any chance of winning on September 12th, because Jack is all wrong for him in every department. I think it’s going to go really badly for Groves in this fight, and there’s not much he can do about it. He doesn’t have the chin, the stamina or the talent to beat a fighter like Jack.

Froch needs to do the right thing by coming out of retirement to face Golovkin for better for for worse. Even if Froch gets blasted out, he at least can retire with a clean conscience that he fought the best fighter in the 160lb division and gave it his best shot regardless of the outcome.



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