Axum Ezana
Driving in the fast lane
After an entire month of thinking about whether to make a comeback or not, former IBF/WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (33-2, 24 KOs) still isn’t any closer to resuming his career than he was before. However, Froch, 37, is saying that if he makes a comeback, he would be leaning in the direction of facing IBF super middleweight champion James DeGale rather than the unbeaten WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin.
If DeGale were to agree to a purse split that Froch was happy with, and if he felt that it would sellout
Wembley Stadium in London, UK, then he might take the fight with him. But Froch has his doubts whether DeGale would come in at the right price.
Froch feels that DeGale would potentially ask for too much money now that he’s the IBF 168lb champ rather than just another contender at super middleweight.
“I think it’s James DeGale or it’s Gennady Golovkin, Probably in that order,” Froch said to Steve Bunce via ESPN.co.uk. “If they called up tomorrow and said we’ve got the DeGale fight and we think it will sell Wembley, and they start being reasonable with the split they’re looking for then maybe.”
I can’t say I’m surprised that Froch isn’t chomping at the bit to get in the ring with Golovkin, because it’s a fight that would have a huge chance of Froch being left face down on the canvas after getting drilled by one of Golovkin’s devastating left hooks or right hands.
With Froch’s leaky defense, Golovkin would have countless opportunities in each round to KO Froch with a single shot to the head. I don’t think Froch wants that kind of risk, and not just because of what it would do to his legacy if he were to lose like that. I think Froch is also concerned what it could potentially do to him if he were to be obliterated with a head shot that knocks him clean out.
“Froch also revealed that the demands made by Golovkin, including dropping down substantially in weight, mean that he is more likely to face DeGale if he takes on either,” Bunce said.
This is interesting because I wasn’t aware that Golovkin and his promoter Tom Loeffler were asking Froch to come down in weight to fight him. The question is did Loeffler tell Froch’s promoter Eddie Hearn that Froch would have to come down to 164 or lower to take a fight against Golovkin? If so, then why hasn’t Hearn brought this up in the media as an excuse why the Froch-Golovkin fight isn’t taking place?
There’s been no word about Golovkin and Loeffler asking for a catch-weight. The only thing I’ve heard is that Golovkin would go all the way up to 168 to take the fight with Froch, and that he’d be willing to fight him in his own backyard in the UK. But if Golovkin and Loeffler are asking for a catch-weight for the fight before they’d agree to it, then they gave Froch any excuse that he ever needed in order to say no to the fight.
Frankly, I’d be surprised if Golovkin asked for a catch-weight because he routinely spars with bigger fighters during his training camps, so I couldn’t see him making a big deal about fighting Froch at the full weight for the super middleweight division, given that Froch only rehydrates into the 170s. Golovkin weighs between 170 and 175 for his fights at middleweight, so it’s not as if he would be giving away a lot of weight to Froch. At best, I’d say Golovkin might wind up 5 to 8 pounds lighter than Froch, which is basically nothing.
Just what kind of split Froch would be looking to get in a fight against DeGale is the big question. Would he be in favor of a 70-30 split, or would Froch be looking for something really tilted in his favor like 80-20 or even 85-15. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of those two splits were what Froch would have in mind in a fight against DeGale, and rightfully, I think DeGale would turn them down cold. What champion takes a split like that against a challenger? It would be a really bizarre for a champion to defend his title if his challenger were the one that got the huge money. It wouldn’t even be worthwhile for DeGale to take the fight with Froch if he were to get chicken feed, so it’s probably not even worth talking about the fight.
http://www.boxingnews24.com/2015/07...-of-degale-rather-than-golovkin-for-comeback/
Id rather see froch/ggg
