The Cobra Returns: Carl Froch speaks to East Side Boxing

25.11.05 – Interview by Cris Neill: It’s unusual to find a boxer immersed in study just weeks before a title bout – but then, Carl Froch (photo: Chris Royle) is no ordinary fighter. The Commonwealth super middleweight champion, deep in preparation for his fight with Ruben Gronewald on December 2, was learning Spanish when he took time out to speak to EastsideBoxing. It would be equally unusual to find a boxer willing to take on a competitive opponent following a hand injury – but again, Froch confounds preconceptions. The fight is his first following surgery for a ruptured extensor hood to his right hand this summer. His opponent, Ruben Gronewald, looks lively enough – so why hasn’t Froch opted for a walkover? He admits that the Ramsgate-based South African isn’t going to run away: “He will do what he usually does; stand in front of me and try to have a tear-up. I won’t have to go looking for him, that’s for sure.” It’s a testament to Froch’s gameness that he’s opted for a competitive fight, and an encouraging hint that the Nottingham-based fighter may be the man to breathe life back into the impoverished super middleweight division.

Speaking from his London training camp, Froch sounds relaxed and confident. His sledgehammer right hand, the clenched thunder that has steered him to 12 knockouts, has been restored to full working order: “It was giving me a bit of trouble when I first had the operation done because I was trying to rush it a little bit, because I was eager to start punching with it, but I gave it the full 12 weeks recovery. I’ve been punching with it for the last two or three weeks and it feels fine.”

Sustaining a hand injury would normally drive a boxer to despair, but typically, Froch has turned the situation to his advantage: “I’ve been doing a lot more running and cardiovascular work. My fitness is a lot better than it usually is, but what you gain at one end you lose on something else. I’m down to 12 stone already, I’ve been sat on the weight for about two weeks, and I’m lifting really heavy weights.

I don’t do much weightlifting but I do a lot of power moves, a lot of clean and press and squatting and deadlifting. The weights I’m lifting are heavier than usual, and I’m a bit lighter than I usually am, so it’s not as if I’ve lost weight and lost strength. I’m really happy with the shape I’m in.”

While Froch has worked hard to maximise his athletic potential, he also points out that a lot of the credit must go to Mother Nature: “I’m very lucky genetically, I don’t put weight on. My father is like an athlete, he walks around at 13.5 stone and he’s 6’2” but he drinks Guinness like it’s going out of fashion and he eats what he wants when he wants and he has a six-pack.

I think it’s Polish genes, my grandparents on my dad’s side are Polish . Ricky Hatton blows up, but there’s nothing he can do about that, it’s just the way he is, it’s all to do with your metabolism and genes. I’m fortunate, I’m in a weight-governed sport, but I don’t really have to make the weight, I can eat right up to the day of a fight.”

Talking to Froch, you get the impression you’re in the presence of that rarest of phenomena – a fighter who is able to give a sense of what it’s actually like be in the ring, fighting for your livelihood and reputation: “You just try and keep your focus and read off your opponent; every action from them causes a reaction. If my opponent looks tired and drawn and looks like he’s trying to hang on then I’ll step it up through the gears and unload the shots.

I don’t really worry about my conditioning because I do all that before I get in the ring. I don’t cut corners – I run hard, I train hard, to make the fight easy. If I just think he’s there to run and survive like Matthew Barney was then I won’t go too mad because you just end up walking into silly shots. I mean, he wasn’t there to fight, so he was holding and grabbing at every opportunity.”

Which brings us to Gronewald. He has been in with high-level opposition, has been an all-African champion, and contested five 12-rounders. He won’t spend the night running – and Froch is clearly relishing the opportunity to put on a show: “Fans love a knockout, fans love excitement, and I do aim to entertain the crowd. I’m in the entertainment business and the way to make money in this game is to get people to come along and watch you.

The most important thing is winning, because it’s that which keeps you going. I’ll be looking at taking Ruben out, without a doubt. I’ll be standing in front of him at some stage, and playing him at his own game.”

At 16-0, Froch’s record is impressive, not so much as an account of what he’s done, but of what he might do. Boxing history is littered with fighters who appeared to have the smarts and skills to go all the way, but through bad luck or bad-management, never fulfilled their potential. Nevertheless, you can’t help forming the impression that Froch actually has the necessary qualities to validate his ambitions, not least of which is the ability to assess his own strengths and weaknesses as a fighter:

“I’m very tall, I’ve got good range I’m a hard puncher I’m very fast I’ve got good reflexes I’m an all-round fighter. I don’t just stand and trade and rely on a concussive knockout, I’m not really a box-mover who can’t punch very hard and keeps out of trouble I can stand and fight, I can move around and box when I have to. I do have a big punch; a lot of the fighters that I box, when they’re coming forward, they may think they’re putting me on the back foot I’ve only got to hit them with a decent uppercut or a straight right hand and they soon slow down and back off. It’s good to be accurate, my timing is very good, I’ve got good power and I’m a good judge of distance.

All fighters can always improve, all fighters have weaknesses – for every strength there’s a weakness. If you’re a big puncher you might have a ropey chin if you’ve got fast hands you might not be a big puncher. If you stand there and fight, you’re not very good at moving, so you’re easily out-boxed. Of course, I have weaknesses, but who hasn’t? This is why I have a trainer, Bob McCracken, and a great trainer he is. I work on stuff in the gym all the time. People give my defence stick, but my defence is impeccable. I get hit with the odd shot, but you can’t go out in the rain and not get wet. I’m still studying, I’m still champion, I’m undefeated, so I haven’t got a problem. I’m working on my defence all the time blocking shots, rolling off, getting my range in sparring.”

Inevitably, talk turns to Joe Calzaghe. There has been a well-documented war or words between Froch and the Newbridge boxer, but when can we expect them to transfer their debate to the one place where it really matters, the ring?

“I’m probably going to need to become the European champion, and then become mandatory, because Calzaghe has already proved he doesn’t want to fight me unless he has to. Hopefully, it’s a fight that the general public and boxing fans want but unfortunately him or his father Enzo are just dishing out stick and rubbish me off as if I’m not an eligible opponent – and then they go and jump in with the likes of Ashira, which was ridiculous. He [Calzaghe] should never have been fighting someone of that calibre. He was defending his world title, what was he doing fighting someone who’s ranked below me?”

It’s a problem that dogs every rising contender, the Catch-22 that frustrates so many boxers. To progress, you must face a rising calibre of opponent. But the problem is this: as your stock and ability rises, so you become a fighter to be avoided. Paradoxically, the better you are, the harder it gets to demonstrate your abilities, and it’s a barrier that Froch is familiar with: “Obviously, people want to take fights that they’re 100 per cent convinced they can win these days, and that is the problem. People don’t really want to take a gamble or take a risk, and because I’m on the way up – you’ve got to remember, I’ve only had 16 fights – no-one wants to lose to someone who’s rising, and who hasn’t really crossed over to mainstream and become massive which I haven’t at the moment.

A lot of people in boxing circles know me and I’m very well-known in Nottingham but I’m still yet to have a defining fight where people say ‘Yeah, this kid’s good, we’re going to get behind him now’. Hopefully that kind of fight will happen next year with the likes of Brian Magee or Vitaly Tsypko for the European title.”

Apart from Calzaghe, the other boxer who must inevitably appear on Froch’s radar is Jeff Lacy. It would be an intriguing match – the close-coupled muscular Lacy against the leaner, rangier Froch, and the Nottingham fighter admits he can’t wait for it to happen:

“Jeff Lacy is my ultimate fight, that’s the fight I’m looking to get and hopefully I can get that late next year. He’s very strong and tough, he’s short and stocky and a big puncher, but I know exactly what to do to beat a fighter like that. It won’t be easy, it will be a tough fight but if I apply what I can apply and get it all right on the night, I’d get him out of there. “

Styles make fights, and the way to beat Jeff Lacy is not to stand in front of him and trade with him. He’s a lot shorter than me, he’s got shorter levers so he’s going to get his punches off first, and he’s a big puncher, you can tell my the shape of his body, he works on power and trying to take people out, so you’ve got to Sugar Ray Leonard him. That’s what I’d be looking at doing: out-boxing him, out-skilling him, and moving around the ring. Obviously now and then I’d have to take him on, it’s quite a small place the ring, and 45 minutes, 12 three minute rounds, and it’s a long time to keep out of the way of someone who’s attacking. Every now and again play him at his own game; I’ve got a granite chin and I punch hard myself, so these people who he’s walking through at the minute – who’s he boxed of any real credibility who isn’t past their best? He’s still very much untested, and he has almost come unstuck a couple of times.”

Brendan Ingle had a way of describing what a boxer needs to make it to the top – and stay there. Clean living, he described it. The ability to live for tomorrow. To be disciplined. To want this more than that. Froch shares a hometown with an equally talented fighter – Kirkland Laing. Laing’s moment of glory and spectacular downfall are a stark reminder of the pitfalls that await the unwary and unfocused fighter. It’s a lesson Froch has absorbed well:

“It’s a short-term career, boxing. A lot of people say, ‘how can you do this, your friends go out and have a drink’ and so on. If I can’t apply myself for the next seven or eight years and try to fulfil a dream and be able to financially look after my family and friends, then I’d have to be stupid. A lot of people can’t do it, they can’t apply themselves but I can see the chance that I’ve been given to do something with my life and I’m going to take it with both hands and give it everything. I’m not going to smoke and drink and cut corners when I’m running. That gives me the dedication and the focus. I look at all-time greats, see what they’ve got, see how comfortable their lives are, the cars they drive around in and the houses they live in and the comfort and security they’ve got and that keeps me driving forward.”

Somehow, you get the feeling that Carl Froch will be driving forward for quite some time.