By Michael Collins: The perception out there by some boxing fans is that former WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch has seen better days in his career, and he’s now winding things down serving as an opponent for IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute to prove himself against in order to get bigger paydays and a big unification match against WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward either this year or next year.
Froch and Bute meet on Saturday night at the Nottingham Arena in Nottingham, UK. This will be a home fight for Froch, and he doesn’t plan on failing in front of what will be 9000 faithful fans on May 26th.
Froch’s trainer Rob McCracken said to thesun.co.uk “After Carl’s loss to Andre Ward, they feel he isn’t as dangerous as he was. But Carl has put it right. They are coming into Carl’s backyward and will come unstuck.”
To be fair, it’s hard to disagree with the believe that Froch has lost a step because he didn’t look at all good in getting beat by Ward last December in the Super Six tournament finals in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Though Froch fought his heart out against a fighter with only his right hand working for him, it wasn’t enough for him to get past Ward. Froch was pounded on the inside, and no matter what he tried, Ward was able to counter it. Froch also didn’t look good in fights against Andre Dirrell and Mikkel Kessler in the same Super Six tournament. Froch probably deserved to lose to Dirrell, but the fight was held in Nottingham, and the judges gave Froch the decision despite him being pretty well handled by the younger, faster Dirrell.
Froch’s problems against Bute are that he’s facing a stronger version of Joe Calzaghe. Bute does the same kind of things that Calzaghe did during his prime, but Bute is so much more dangerous because of his one punch power to the head and body. Froch is someone that is easy to hit, and that could really hurt him in this fight because Bute takes advantage of fighters with no power by knocking them out.