Johnson-Froch: Glen may wreck Carl’s world on 6/4

By Boxing News - 05/03/2011 - Comments

By Scott Gilfoid: If you were to ask 100 boxing fans who they thought would win the June 4th semifinals Super Six tournament fight between WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (27-1, 20 KO’s) and 42-year-old challenger Glen Johnson (51-14-2, 35 KO’s), I’d say an overwhelming amount of them would pick Froch as the winner. They would see his youth, his power and some of his past performances in the Super Six tournament as reasoning for picking Froch to win.

But I’m here to tell you these same fans are going to be dead wrong, because Johnson’s superior talent, experience and inside fighting ability is going to make Froch look like an unequipped amateur in there on June 4th. It’s not even going to be close. Johnson is the wrong kind of fighter for Froch to be facing.

Froch is one of those stand up European fighters who has never had to learn how to properly fight on the inside before. Why should he when most British fighters tend to peck away at each other on the outside. Yeah, the smaller guys do a little banging away on the inside but for the most part they stand outside and bomb each other.

Johnson, though, has had a long career where he’s had to develop inside fighting skills. It was either that or he’d end up losing a lot of fights. Johnson has been in with tough fighters like Bernard Hopkins and had the opportunity to learn the hard way how to fight in close.

Froch is going to be getting educated by Johnson on how to fight on the inside in their Super Six tournament and I suspect Froch won’t have clue one what to do other than resorting to roughhouse tactics like holding and hitting and rabbit shots that will get him warned by the referee. The fight is going to be taking place in the U.S., so if Froch gets frustrated and starts manhandling Johnson the way he did the talented Andre Dirrell, we may see Froch get disqualified and quick in this fight.

Froch is smart and he should figure out that he won’t be able to beat Johnson by trying to rough him up. It’s going to be one of those sink or swim type fights for Froch. He either will be able to adapt quickly to the inside game that Johnson is bringing to him or he’ll flounder. I suspect Froch will flail around on the inside and go down to defeat.



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