Froch vs. Ward: Andre needs to keep his guard up at all times against Carl

By Boxing News - 09/22/2011 - Comments

Image: Froch vs. Ward: Andre needs to keep his guard up at all times against CarlBy Scott Gilfoid: WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (24-0, 13 KO’s) is going to need to keep his guard high at all times against WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (28-1, 20 KO’s) next month in their Super Six tournament finals bout.

The reason is because if Ward accidentally brushes Froch with his head or maybe a misplaced elbow, we could see Froch – fighter known to retaliate in anger during some of his bouts when things aren’t going well for him – go off and blast Ward with a foul to the back of the head or maybe some other kind of foul.

You’d like to think that Froch will keep it clean if he gets hit with an accidental headbutt, but I don’t think he will. I can see him doing something odd like laying into Ward with his own head and causing a terrible cut. If that happens, I’m praying that the referee do the wise thing by immediately disqualifying Froch for the blatant retaliatory foul but I’m not counting on that happening.

I’d just be happy if the referee takes a point away from Froch, because we can’t have fighters retaliating with fouls like we saw with Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Victor Ortiz last weekend. Even if was considered legal, it had foul written all over it. And that’s what I’m afraid of with Froch. He can really hurt Ward if he takes it in his mind to tee off with a rabbit shot or maybe pick him up and body slam him to the canvas like he did against Andre Dirrell two years ago.

We can’t have fighters taking the approach where they feel they have to even the score for every accidental foul they receive. That’s why we have referees. Froch just needs to keep his head together and not go ape and start throwing Ward around the ring like a rag doll. This is boxing, not MMA. I really have worries about this.

I see Froch as someone a little unstable when it comes to temperament in the ring, and when things aren’t going well for him, like they probably won’t be on October 29th, he’s likely to do anything if Ward brushes up against him with his head. All Froch needs is an excuse at that point to take things to a medieval level and revert to a primitive type of fighting. I think Ward doesn’t know how to fight like that because he’s a talented former Gold Medal winner in the Olympics. In that case, I hope the referee pulls the plug on the fight quickly by giving Froch the yank and thus crowning Ward the Super Six tournament champion.



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