As fans know, there is nothing going on in the world of boxing right now. Zero, nada, nout. No live action is likely for the coming weeks, if not months, so fight fans are hungry for something else to keep their lust for combat in a safe place. And though the subject of a Gennady Golovkin-Carl Froch Dream Fight would likely attract plenty of fan interest and opinion at any time, the subject, and what Froch himself had to say on the fight on his ‘Froch on Fighting Podcast,‘ is really getting fans talking right now.
Froch, who retired after knocking out George Groves in their huge, 80,000 fans in attendance rematch, was offered a 166 pound catch-weight fight with GGG, but “The Cobra” turned it down. Had the fight gone ahead, however, Froch is certain he would have been “too big and strong” for Triple-G and that he would have “beaten him up.”
A number of boxing sites have ran with the story, and it’s fair to say the majority of fans are not buying what Froch had to say.
“This is only gonna take five seconds – too big and too strong. Back him up, back him up, mess him up,” Froch said on the subject of he and GGG getting it on. “When you’re too big for somebody and too strong for somebody, I don’t care that he can punch had because I can take a punch. He’s not gonna be hitting me with 100 big stinking right hands clean on the chin because I’m gonna move out the way of most of them or block most of them. I fought Arthur Abraham, he was knocking everybody out. He was a ‘Monster Puncher,’ but I think I got hit once or twice the whole fight. Totally outboxed him and outmaneuvered him. And the tactics would be the same for Golovkin because I’ve got height and reach on him.
“I just feel he’s too small, not tough enough. Alright he can punch hard, but Martin Murray took him 11 rounds. No disrespect to Martin Murray, but he’s a domestic level fighter. Them fighters don’t last three/four rounds with me.”
Froch went on to explain why he did not accept the catch-weight fight:
“We were in talks. They were trying to get me down to 166 pounds,” Froch said. “That don’t sound like much [weight]. I was a machine at 12 stone (168). I could not have lost another 2lbs and performed. They were trying to drag me down that bit further. I said, ‘Let’s make the fight at 12 stone. You think you’re too much for me.’ Don’t forget I was out of the ring, this was after I’d been retired a year, then the talks started to get a bit serious. At the time they were talking I was 13 stone 4lbs, a lifetime heaviest.”
But had he fought GGG, at his best and not depleted from making 166, Froch is certain he would have got the win:
“I’d beat him up because I’m too big and strong for him,” Froch stated. “I might be wrong, we’ll never know, but I would back myself to beat him. [to those fans saying GGG would KO me] I would say I’ve never been stopped. I’ve only been down twice in my career and I got up both times to win. I think I beat him by stoppage. I’d be hitting him that much, that hard. A little bit like the Lucian Bute fight, back him up to the ropes, back him up, smash him to bits, you know how I roll. What a great fight that would have been, and I’m man enough to admit I could’ve come unstuck.”
Froch makes some great points, especially regarding the Golovkin-Murray fight, from 2015. Murray met a peak GGG and he did go those 11 rounds. Froch, a far superior fighter to Murray, also had a rock for a head. Combined with his underrated boxing skill and his power, Froch would have had, at the very least, a shot at going the distance with Golovkin. No doubt.
As Froch says, we’ll never know, but it would have been a great one. Are you with “The Cobra,” or are you on the side of Triple-G?