Anthony Joshua responds to Carl Froch’s complaining about P4P list

By Boxing News - 05/04/2020 - Comments

By Charles Brun: Anthony Joshua responded today in sending four messages to Carl Froch after he lit into him in an interview after failing to be included in a top 10 pound-for-pound list.

Rather than Froch go after one of the other 10 British fighters that made Sun Sport’s top 10 pound-for-pound list, he chose IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Joshua (23-1, 21 KOs), who came in the bottom of the list at #10.

Froch says Joshua sent him four messages, which he deleted in response to him coming about the P4P list.

The pound-for-pound list is as follows:

  1. Joe Calzaghe
  2. Lennox Lewis
  3. Tyson Fury
  4. David Haye
  5. Ricky Hatton
  6. Chris Eubank, Jr.
  7. Prince Naseem Hamed
  8. Duke McKenzie
  9. Nigel Benn
  10. Anthony Joshua

YouTube video

Why Froch chose not to go after one of the other fighters on the list to complain, which is odd. One of Froch’s arguments for why Joshua shouldn’t be ahead of him is the fact that he lost to Andy Ruiz Jr. by a seventh-round knockout last year. However, Joshua avenged the loss by beating Ruiz Jr. (33-2, 22 KOs) by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision last December in Saudi Arabia.

Froch never avenged his loss to Ward

During his career, former unified super middleweight champion Froch lost to Mikel Kessler and Andre Ward. Although Froch did avenge the defeat to Kessler, he never bothered attempting to face Ward again. That looked weak on Froch’s part in choosing not to fight Ward a second time, as it left the impression that he didn’t want to take the risk.

“Not putting me in the top ten is bad news, and I don’t know how you can have AJ in the top ten,” said Froch. “I’m not giving AJ stick, but he got knocked out by a little fat kid from Mexico. I’ve never been knocked out in my life, amateur or professional.

AJ got beat up by a fat Mexican who, we don’t even know how good the Mexican is because he’s not done anything really. And they’ve got him in the top ten.”

Some of those comments from Froch are crossing the line, and they sound bad. Did Froch think before he opened his mouth?

Froch arguably deserves a spot on the top 10 list, but it’s a subjective thing. Why he’s getting upset about a simple pound-for-pound list on a website is hard to know. It’s just one website that threw the list together. Froch should have just ignored it and saw it for what it was. Just some writer’s opinion.

Carl Froch in damage control mode

Froch later tried to defuse his comments about Andy Ruiz and Joshua on his Podcast Froch on Fighting in saying this:

“I was just having a conversation with someone actually off the record. They’ve twisted what I’d said, and said, ‘Anthony Joshua’s got beat by this fat kid from Mexico,’ which is out of order because Andy Ruiz is a decent fighter. And my beef wasn’t with AJ; my beef was with the list. You’ve got AJ in at number ten, you’ve gotta have me in there somewhere between nine and maybe even top five.”

Joshua deserves to be higher on the top 10 list than Froch for two reasons:

  • AJ did 90,000 fans at Wembley Stadium
  • Avenged his only loss

Froch should have three losses on his record, not just two, as his win over Andre Dirrell in 2009 was controversial. A prime Mikkel Kessler then beat Carl in their first fight, and his victories over Arthur Abraham and Glen Johnson came after they were no longer in their prime. Froch was getting schooled by Jermain Taylor through the first 11 rounds before rallying to stop him in the 12th.