Carl Froch boxing news
By Scott Gilfoid: In a press conference earlier today in Copenhagen, Denmark, Mikkel Kessler officially announced on Friday that he’s resuming his boxing career after being retired for 4 years, and Carl Froch appears to be very interested. Froch twice fought Kessler with them spitting at 1-1. The 38-year-old Kessler will be coming back to the super middleweight division to start fighting again. The location and the opponent for Kessler’s first fight of his comeback has yet to be announced.
By Scott Gilfoid: It’s understood by fans that 41-year-old Wladimir Klitschko (64-4, 53 KOs) is just a shell of his former self going into his April 29 showdown against IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (18-0, 18 KOs) at Wembley Stadium in London, England. Carl Froch, now a pundit for Sky Sports, believes that we’re going to be seeing the very best of Klitschko instead of the one that couldn’t throw punches in his last 2 fights against Tyson Fury and Bryant Jennings.
By Allan Fox: Andre Ward (31-0, 15 KOs) will not be missed by the sport of boxing after he retires, according to former 168lb champion Carl Froch. He saw Ward’s recent victory over Sergey Kovalev, and he feels that the fight should have been scored a draw. Ward won by a 12 round unanimous decision by the identical scores of 114-113 x 3. Kovalev fought well enough to deserve the win in the eyes of a lot of the fans and the media, but Ward was the one that had his hand raised after the fight.
It’s now unclear whether Ward will fight Kovalev in a rematch. With the money on the line for the rematch, it’s difficult to imagine Ward retiring without fighting Kovalev at least once more.
By Jim Dower: Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) will be facing a big puncher in Daniel Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) on March 18, and he could have a lot of problems with the New York fighter’s power. Former 168lb champion Carl Froch thinks Jacobs could take him apart with his big punching power.
Not only is this a rare fight in which Golovkin is facing a puncher, but he’s facing a guy with more size than him in Jacobs. Golovkin will be giving away close to three inches in height and reach to Jacobs. That means for Golovkin to land anything, he’s going to get hit with some hard punches by Jacobs.
By Scott Gilfoid: Carl Froch is picking #1 WBC Callum Smith (22-0, 17 KOs) to beat No.1 WBO Anthony Dirrell (30-1, 24 KOs) when the two of them face each other for the now vacant WBC super middleweight title.
Champion Badou Jack vacated the belt on Wednesday of this week in order to move up to light heavyweight to get bigger fights than the ones available in the 168lb division. The World Boxing Council will soon be ordering the Dirrell vs. Smith fight for the vacant WBC super middleweight title.
By Jeff Aranow: Former super middleweight champion Carl Froch is picking IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) to beat both WBA champion Daniel Jacobs (32-1, 29 KOs) in their fight on March 18, as well as Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs) later on in the year in September if the fight can get made. Froch likes Golovkin’s punching power as the main factor that will lead him to victory over Canelo and Jacobs.
Froch notes that Golovkin gets hit a lot in his fights, and he sees Canelo as having a chance of beating him if he can get to him early with one of his hard power shots.
By Scott Gilfoid: IBF super middleweight champion James DeGale (23-1, 14 KOs) could be facing George Groves (25-3, 18 KOs) this year in a unification fight if Groves beats Fedor Chudinov to win the WBA strap, and if DeGale gets past both WBC champ Badou Jack (20-1-2, 12 KOs) and #1 WBC mandatory Callum Smith. Sky sports commentator Carl Froch is picking Groves to beat DeGale if they face each other.
Groves, 28, already beat DeGale by a questionable 12 round majority division six years ago in 2011, and he’s put together four straight wins over weak opposition since his latest loss to Badou Jack in 2015. These are the guys that Groves beat: Eduard Gutknecht, Martin Murray, David Brophy, and Andrea Di Luisa.
By Scott Gilfoid: Carl Froch isn’t letting go of the idea of him wanting middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) to move up in weight to fight IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Andre “SOG” Ward (31-0, 15 KOs) in 2017. In the past, Froch spoke of wanting Golovkin to move up to 168 to fight Ward, which meant Golovkin would move up one weight class to fight him at super middleweight.
Froch now wants Golovkin to move up TWO weight classes to face him at 175. As such, the much smaller Golovkin would be coming up in weight 15 pounds to face a guy with a much larger frame than him in Ward.
By Allan Fox: Trainer Freddie Roach and former super middleweight champion Carl Froch think it’s time for middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin to move up to super middleweight in pursuit of bigger fights. They don’t see any opportunities for Triple G at 160, even though there’s a chance that he could get fights against Danny Jacobs and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in 2017.
Those two fights would seem like reason enough for GGG to stick around at 160, at least until he finds out what Canelo and his promoters at Golden Boy are going to do next year. If Golden Boy chooses to keep Canelo away from Golovkin while using his name constantly with the boxing media to attract interest, then Golovkin might want to move up to 168 to see which fights he can dig up in that weight class.
By Scott Gilfoid: Carl Froch believes that IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua will take care of Eric Molina this Saturday night and stop him at some point in the fight. Froch thinks that Joshua (17-0, 17 KOs) should focus on his boxing and keeping the hard hitting 34-year-old Molina (25-3, 19 KOs) so that he doesn’t get hit by one of his powerful right hands.
Froch isn’t quite sure how well the 6’6” Joshua will take the big right hand shots from Molina, but he suspects he’ll be fine. Froch points out that Molina staggered WBC champion Deontay Wilder with a right hand in their fight in 2015. Molina eventually was stopped in the 9th round after Deontay hit him with some right hands of his own.