Carl Froch, Bold and Boastful, Fights Glen Johnson at BetLM

NEW YORK —His pro­moter calls him one of the best fight­ers to emerge
from Britain.

If Carl Froch wants to live up to such a billing, he’ll have to beat
42-year-old Glen John­son in the semi­fi­nals of the Super Six World Box­ing Clas­sic
on Sat­ur­day night in Atlantic City, N.J.

The boast­ful Froch holds the WBC ver­sion of the super mid­dleweight title,
which he earned by dom­i­nat­ing Arthur Abra­ham last Novem­ber. The vic­tory pushed
him for­ward in the mod­i­fied round-robin tour­na­ment that con­sists of the best
168-pound box­ers in the world.

The win­ner Sat­ur­day night gets a shot at Andre Ward in the finals.

“A lot of you don’t know, but in the U.K., Carl is, in my opin­ion, the
great­est fighter to come out of that coun­try,” said Eddie Hearn of Match­room
Sport, who recently signed a five-fight pro­mo­tional deal with the 33-year-old
title­holder.

“For what he’s achieved, the plat­form this Super Six has given him to fight
the very best fight­ers in the world, he’s done it all,” Hearn said. “I don’t
think there’s ever been a British fighter who’s been in so many big fights
con­sec­u­tively and come out the green belt holder.”

That’s high praise con­sid­er­ing mod­ern box­ing was born in Britain.

The Mar­quess of Queens­berry rules, pub­lished in the 1860s, brought such
novel con­cepts to the game as three-minute rounds, the 10-second count and a
stan­dard size for the ring.

So it makes sense that the United King­dom has crowned its share of
cham­pi­ons. Lennox Lewis ruled the heavy­weights at the turn of the most recent
cen­tury, Ricky Hat­ton and Naseem Hamed were stars of the lighter weights, and
Wales’ Joe Calza­ghe not long ago retired unde­feated in 44 fights.

Froch is on the precipice of joining them.

“I haven’t come this far in this tour­na­ment, and my career, to let it slip
at this point,” Froch said ear­lier this week, before launch­ing into one of his
ram­bling oratories.

“I’ve got­ten a lot of credit to the fights I’ve been involved in,” he
said. “I’m actu­ally get­ting tired of hear­ing how I fight the best—that’s what
I’m in box­ing for. I want to fight the best. I don’t want to fight a
bum-of-the-month.”

His resume cer­tainly backs up his claims.

Froch won a close deci­sion over recent light heavy­weight cham­pion Jean
Pas­cal before the start of the Super Six tour­na­ment. He then knocked out Jer­main
Tay­lor and won a close deci­sion over pre­vi­ously unbeaten Andre Dirrell in the
open­ing stages.

His only career loss came against Mikkel Kessler, a for­mer cham­pion in his
own right and one of the tournament’s heavy favorites, who has since been forced
to drop out because of injury.

“Every­one talks about the loss to Mikkel Kessler, and 80 per­cent of the
peo­ple I talk to don’t acknowl­edge it was a loss,” Froch said. “The fight
could have gone either way.”

Froch (27–1, 20 KOs) responded to the bit­ter dis­ap­point­ment of a nar­row
unan­i­mous deci­sion defeat by tak­ing out his frus­tra­tions on Abra­ham, sweep­ing
every round in their fight.

“He’s focused now,” said Froch’s trainer, Rob McCracken. “Just a lit­tle
bump in the road against Kessler, he was maybe 95 per­cent. But he’s re-motivated
again. He’s on it.”

He will cer­tainly have to be against John­son, who earned the nick­name “The
Road War­rior” over his ster­ling career for his propen­sity for fight­ing
any­where.

The good-natured native of Jamaica and long­time light heavy­weight was a late
sub­sti­tute in the Super Six tour­na­ment, but he looked phe­nom­e­nal drop­ping down
in weight dur­ing his eighth-round knock­out of a younger, quicker Allan Green
last Novem­ber.

The vic­tory proved that John­son (51–14–2, 35 KOs) is only get­ting bet­ter
with age.

“We all know Glen John­son because he’s fought in the U.K. a few times and
we’ve watched him a few times, and he’s a tremen­dous fighter,” McCracken said.
“He deserves the moniker ‘Road War­rior,’ he’s a great road war­rior, but his
time is over.”

Indeed, there appears to be no lack of con­fi­dence com­ing across the
Atlantic, whether it’s from Froch’s pro­moter, his trainer or the fighter
him­self.

“Glen Johnson’s trainer is delusional—he’s delusional—if he thinks
Glen’s going to win,” Froch said, bristling. “He’s not only not going to win
the fight, he’s not going to win a round, just watch. He’s not going to win a
round, let me tell you. I’m too fit, too strong, too young, too great, I punch
too hard and I’m too skillful.

“I will dom­i­nate,” Froch said. “It will be another dom­i­nat­ing
per­for­mance.”