Taylor vs Froch official for April 25 – “Bad Intentions” And His Trainer Speak On The Fight

by James Slater – After what seems like months and months of ongoing and quite difficult negotiations, WBC super-middleweight champion Carl Froch and former WBC 160-pound champion Jermain Taylor will finally meet on April 25th at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut. For a while there it seemed as though the two camps and their respective promoters would be unable to reach a deal, but now the intriguing and possibly explosive fight is on..

Last night, as a guest at the ESPN televised Glen Johnson-Daniel Judah II fight, “Bad Intentions” spoke about the upcoming fight that has developed into something of a grudge match; what with both he and the current champion having already gotten into quite a war of words.

“He’s [Froch] been running his mouth a lot, now it’s time to shut him up,” Taylor said. “I’m looking forward to the fight. I know exactly what I have to do. I have to take the fight right to him.”

The 28-2-1(17) Taylor’s trainer, Ozell Nelson certainly expects his man to do as he says and go right out at Froch and dominate on the front foot. However, “The Cobra,” as he showed in his winning the title in a real battle with Canada’s Jean Pascal, can really take a shot as well as give one himself. As such, with Team-Taylor announcing how they plan to go right at the champion, the fans can expect a great fight.

Nelson said he anticipates a completely different fight for his man this time around compared to his win over Jeff Lacy last time out – and that he is restructuring training camp accordingly.

“We are taking a different approach to this fight,” Nelson said. “This kid [Froch] is more of a stand-up boxer than Lacy, so we’re bringing in different sparring partners. We knew that Lacy had to come to us. Froch has long arms, so he may want to stand back and box a little bit. [Kelly] Pavlik is a hell of a lot stronger, and this kid [Froch] has more movement than Pavlik. Froch moves more, but his head is still right there. Actually, Froch fights similar to Jermain.”

31-year-old Froch, who is a lot more vocal than is the year younger man in Taylor, has said that he will, “Smoke Taylor’s boots” when they meet, and that he is sure the Arkansas man has only taken the fight reluctantly. Indeed, you can almost certainly expect a public announcement from “The Cobra” any time soon now that the fight is 100-percent on.

Nelson, though, is sure his man will be the winner on April 25th.

“If things go as planned, we are going to mess Froch up real, real good,” Nelson stated. “We’ll be aggressive and dominate. We want to go at Froch.”

With the reigning and unbeaten champion, 24-0(19), in such a similar mood and being in no way prepared to yield in the fight himself, 2009 might just get a FOTY candidate in just under two months time!