Retired great Andre Ward was over in the UK this past weekend, to work the Vasyl Lomachenko-Luke Campbell fight for ESPN, and both before het got into London and while he was there, Ward let it be known on social media that he was “looking for Carl Froch.”
As fans recall, Ward decisioned Froch in the final of the Super-Six 168 pound tournament back in December of 2011. Ever since, the two have exchanged words: Ward saying he beat Froch whilst carrying an injury, Froch saying Ward was boring and never in an entertaining fight.
There is still some prickle between the relationship these two warriors have, all these years after their one and only fight. And now Froch, a pundit and contributing writer for Sky Sports, has had yet more to say about Ward. Writing a column for Sky Sports, Froch stated in his piece that Ward “only came to England, because he knew I was in Spain.”
“I saw one little clip that my brother sent me while I was sunbathing next to the pool. I think Ward just said we had been exchanging banter back and forth on Twitter? “Let’s get together, let’s have a chat,” I don’t know what he was saying,” Froch wrote. “I’m just honest about what I see and I think his style is borderline cheating. Listen, he beat me fair and square, let’s get that straight, but it was one of the worst fights I’ve been involved in since Matthew Barney, who nobody will know. That’s when somebody smothers you, puts their head on your chest, and basically holds you at any given moment they can, and ducks low.
“You have to admire him for going through his career unbeaten, but he’s not an entertainer, and in an entertaining sport, it’s good to entertain. Andre Ward’s style is effective, but it’s boring. You’ll never rewatch a Ward fight. He fought the most feared man in boxing, Sergey Kovalev twice. Let’s be honest, he beat him with low blows in the end. All I do is, I just tell the truth. If the truth hurts, you don’t like it, then do something about it. He can’t argue with me. We offered him the fight, let’s make this quite clear, Eddie Hearn can confirm this, at the Nottingham Forest ground. I know that’s my hometown, but he turned it down, saying I want Wembley Stadium. Unfortunately Ward, at the time, no one was interested in seeing me and you at Wembley Stadium. After the Groves fight, maybe we’ll do Wembley, but we couldn’t do it at that time.”
A return fight between Ward and Froch would certainly have been interesting, but would the result have been any different to the first fight? Froch may be right when he says Ward is boring – he is to some fans, for sure. But who was the better boxer of the two? Both men are well respected and have a solid place in boxing history. It’s a shame these two cannot truly respect one another.
While as far as Froch stating Ward only came to these shores because he knew he was in Spain; I wonder what Froch would have done if he HAD been in the country when Ward was here?