By James Slater: Britain’s Carl Froch, a fighter who has fought an amazing run of ultra-quality fighters back-to-back over the last 14-months or so, is already talking about what could come next for him once the “Super Six” is done.
As fans know, the reigning, now two-time WBC 168-pound champion will fight “Road Warrior” Glen Johnson on May 21st, in his tournament semi-final. Then, if he has come through that fight okay, “The Cobra” will fight the undefeated Andre Ward in the final. There is much work ahead for Froch if he’s to pick up that Boxing Classic trophy (and most fans, in the U.S at least, look at Ward as the favourite to win “Super Six”), but as tough and as determined as he is, no-one can write him off. Far from it.
But Froch has been thinking about what could come next for him; whether he’s won “Super Six” or not. Two fighters the 33-year-old spoke about to the web site of The Nottingham Post recently were Kelly Pavlik and Jean Pascal. The former middleweight king was recently made the WBC #1 contender at 168-pounds; meaning a fight between “The Ghost” and Froch could possibly happen. Froch gave his opinion on the warrior from Youngstown.
“I’m not worried [about Pavlik]. He would be easy to beat,” Froch said. “Pavlik was big and strong at his weight but he would be out of his depth at super middleweight. He got handed a massive whupping when he took on Bernard Hopkins.”
Despite what Froch has to say, there are a good number of fans who would like to see him defend against Pavlik; once Kelly has gotten at least a couple of confidence building comeback wins under his belt. Styles make fights, and if Pavlik has retained his mental and physical strength as well as his wicked punching power, the 6’2” slugger will perhaps be able to go to war with Froch.
The other fighter Froch spoke about, he has a lot more respect for. Back when he won the WBC 168-pound belt for the first time, by out-pointing Canada’s Jean Pascal in a real thriller, Froch made a promise to the man he had beaten: that he would fight him again one day. Froch says he still intends to honour that promise.
“The [Pascal] fight is still on,” Froch said. “I promised him I would give him a return and I will, but first I have to get the Super Six out of the way.”
Of course, a lot could happen between now and a likely time Froch-Pascal II would happen. Froch could lose, to either Johnson or Ward, and Pascal could lose his light-heavyweight crown to Bernard Hopkins in their May return fight. Maybe the two would still look at facing each other again, even if neither guy held a title. As good as the first fight was, the fans would pay to see a non-title return between the two, that’s for sure.
But imagine how big a return would be if Froch was fresh off a great “Super Six” triumph AND if Pascal had decisively beaten Hopkins in their rematch! If the rematch came about under this scenario, we would not just be excited about seeing a return of a truly great fight; we would be anticipating a classic between two of the top Pound-for-Pound fighters in the sport!