By Michael Collins: Promoter Frank Warren believes that Carl Froch will lose tonight when he faces IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute in Nottingham. However, Warren still wants Froch to fight one of his fighters WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly despite what happens to Froch in the Bute fight.
Warren said in his column in thesun.co.uk “For Froch, my offer stands for him to face WBO world light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly.”
Froch has been seemingly uninterested in facing the young Cleverly for some reason. Perhaps he doesn’t like the idea of him being the guy that builds a name for the rising star. However, it’s a fight that would likely pay Froch well, and he’d have a good chance of winning the fight as long as he could stay busy enough to compete with Cleverly’s high volume punch output. Froch likely won’t be able to throw as many punches as Cleverly, however, so he’ll have to make sure he makes his punches count. Of course none of this will mean anything if Froch decides he doesn’t want any part of fighting Cleverly.
Warren said this about tonight’s Froch-Bute fight: “I think he [Froch] should be grateful he’s been given a chance at a world title despite coming off a loss in his last fight to Ward…A defeat to Bute will leave him without many big fights on the horizon…I think Bute will have too much for him.”
I’m in agreement with Mr. Warren about Bute probably having too much for Froch to deal with. It’s a bad style match-up for Froch, because Bute is even harder to hit than the last fighter that Froch fought Andre Ward. Bute doesn’t stand in front of his opponents for long if they’re looking to land shots.
In order to hit Bute, you’ve got to time him and you have to be good at predicting when he’ll be making his attacks. I don’t know if Froch will be able to do this, because it takes quickness and excellent counter punching ability. Froch doesn’t have the foot speed to catch up to Bute if the Romanian fighter decides he wants to play hit and run all night long. That’s a style that Bute can use if he’s facing a hard puncher like Froch, and he’s very hard to hit when he’s fighting like this. Froch could be hitting air all night long and unable to do much.