Froch: I wouldn’t put Golovkin in my top 10 P4P

By Boxing News - 09/29/2015 - Comments

froch564By Scott Gilfoid: Former IBF/WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch kicked sand in the face of IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) by saying that he wouldn’t put him in his top 10 pound for pound list in boxing right now due to Froch not being satisfied with the hard hitting Golovkin’s resume.

What’s interesting is that Froch doesn’t see Golovkin as even a top 10 fighter in the p4p list despite the boxing fans largely seeing Golovkin as the No.1 guy now. If Froch has problems with Golovkin’s resume due to him not having fought a lot of high caliber fighter, he should blame himself for that.

Froch had the chance to fight Golovkin recently but he turned the fight down and instead retired from boxing. Some boxing fans think that Golovkin drove Froch into an early retirement by calling him out, and putting him in the position where he’d look bad if he continued his career without facing him.

“I wouldn’t even put Gennady Golovkin in my top 10,” Froch said to skysports.com. “I wouldn’t even put Gennady Golovkin in my top 10 yet because I look at their resumes, so if you are looking for the pound-for-pound best, I have to go with Andre Ward.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1&v=1UUptSjXPVA

I wonder if Froch’s lack of appreciation of Golovkin’s considerable talents has anything to do with him having called Froch out repeatedly before he retired rather than fighting the Kazakhstan star.

Froch was between a rock and a hard place with the pressure that Golovkin, his promoter Tom Loeffler, and the boxing fans were putting on him to face the KO artist. But instead of facing Golovkin and going out as a potential hero, Froch chose to retire and make his last fight of his career against the recently exposed George Groves.

Not long before Froch retired, he snapped off this Tweet:

When the boxing world called Froch out on his Tweet, asking him to prove that he was “too big & too strong for GGG,” they were met with silence. Froch didn’t appear to have the interest to get inside the ring with the hard hitting Golovkin to prove whether he was too big and strong for the fighter.

It seems to me that if Froch is going to say that Golovkin doesn’t have the resume to be a top 10 pound for pound fighter, then he really should be blaming himself because he could have fought him and given him at least one scalp for his resume.

If Golovkin had taken Froch’s scalp and sent him into retirement without a hair on his head, he would an overwhelming choice by boxing fans and the media to be the No.1 pound for pound fighter right now, but for some reason Froch didn’t fight him. Now why is that?

Why didn’t Froch face Golovkin? I don’t know, but I think many fans have a dim view about Froch not taking the fight. Many of the boxing fans feel that Froch was so concerned with protecting his legacy that he chose to get out of the sport the easy way off the back of two wins over domestic fighter George Groves rather than off of a tough fight against Golovkin.

I suppose at the time, Froch might have been under the impression that Groves was going to go on to great things in his career, and that in turn would make his own legacy look even better. But with Groves losing to Badou Jack on September 12th, it cheapens Froch’s two wins over Groves, showing that it really wasn’t a big deal that he beat him.

Badou isn’t considered to be the best of the current super middleweight champions right now or even the 2nd best. If a fighter like Badou is beating Groves, then what would fighters like James DeGale, Arthur Abraham, Fedor Chudinov or Andre Ward do to Groves? My guess is they would whip him worse than Froch did.

Froch went on to talk about Andre Ward, who he rates as the No.1 pound for pound fighter. Froch doesn’t like Ward’s fighting style, even though Ward had an easy time beating Froch by a 12 round decision in the finals of the Super Six tournament in 2011.

“I’ll be honest and admit I am not a fan of Ward,” Froch said. ”I am a boxing fan and I like to be entertained. Even Floyd Mayweather gave it a go and was a little more offensive and there are plenty of fighters who are much better at that, but when it comes to pound-for-pound, I can’t look past Ward.”

Well, Ward didn’t look so defensive in puffing up Froch’s face in their fight in 2011. Ward also looked plenty offensive minded in his win over Paul Smith last June in stopping him in the 9th round in an impressive display of punching. That was an entertaining fight by Ward.
If Froch wants a more aggressive fighter than Ward for his pound for pound list, then he should simply put Golovkin as No.1 on the list, and not hold him back due to his resume not having big names.

Froch had his chance to fight Golovkin, so it’s on him that the Kazakhstan fighter didn’t get a chance to add his pelt to his growing collection. It’ll be soon academic after Golovkin beats David Lemieux next month in their fight on October 17th, and either fights the winner of the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Miguel Cotto or is given the WBC 160lb title outside of the ring if/when they choose not to fight him.

It’s going to look really bad if the Cotto-Canelo winner chooses to duck Golovkin. I guess you could say it’ll look as bad as Froch choosing to retire rather than face Golovkin, because that move made Froch look really bad in the eyes of a lot of the boxing fans of the sport.

Golovkin will be fighting IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs) on October 17th on HBO Championship Boxing from Madison Square Garden in New York. The Golovkin-Lemieux fight sold out within weeks, faster than the Miguel Cotto vs. Antonio Margarito rematch in December 2011.



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