Former super-middleweight champion, Carl Froch has given his take on a fantasy match up between himself and current boxing superstar Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
Froch, who captured the WBC, WBA and the IBF titles all at different stages during his career, retired from boxing back in 2015. His last fight was a rematch with British rival George Groves which ended in a spectacular knockout in the 8th round when he scored with a big right cross to the head.
Since retirement Froch has kept himself busy by giving his expert opinion on various big fights shown on SKY Sports.
Pro Boxing Fans recently caught up with Carl and asked him how a fight between him and Canelo would go. And the Nottinghamian is pretty confident that he would come out on top!
“I would have loved that fight,” Froch told Pro Boxing Fans.
“If I was in my prime and my prime being the back end of my career.
“I beat Lucian Bute in that obliteration and I had the rematch with [Mikkel] Kessler and then two [George] Groves fights, which I wasn’t fully motivated for the first Groves fight, but I was for the second.
“I was a mature, seasoned, professional world champion. I had suffered defeats, come back and won.
“So, me in my prime at about 34, 35-years-old against Canelo Alvarez, I think I would have been too much for him.
“I think that myself, the viewers and the listeners can think what they want, but I back myself in fights.
“Against smaller people like Arthur Abraham, who was knocking everybody over and everybody was frightened to death of getting in with him, I just totally outboxed him and battered him like he’d never been battered before.
“So, when I look at Canelo Alvarez and I’ve met him and shook his hand before the [Billy Joe] Saunders fight, because we’ve interviewed him on DAZN.
“I was looking at him and sizing him up and he’s about 5ft 8 and I shook his hand and his hands aren’t very big.
“We didn’t have a pull or a push or anything, it was amicable! But I was looking at him thinking, ‘I’m not so sure you’d get near me and if you did I’m happy to put one into you, because of the size.’
“But who knows. At the time I would have took the fight, it would have been amazing.
“It would have been me trying to box and move and then realising I’m not good enough to box and move, because he’s a very good boxer even though he’s shorter, so I would have thought, right I’ve got to stand and have a fight with him.
“It would have been, do I get chinned? Would he have been the first man to knock me out? I’m not so sure. Would he have put me over? Maybe. But would I have got up to win? Possibly. We’ll never know.”
I agree that Froch’s best chance to beat the Mexican would be to stand and trade with him and attempt to drag him into a war. But I think Alvarez is a little too smart to let that happen. Both boxers have very good punch resistance. If I had to estimate, I would say that Froch has the slightly stronger chin since he had campaigned at super-middleweight for his entire career and always fought naturally stronger opposition.
But Alvarez is a very good boxer. A versatile one who is only getting better at his ability to adapt his tactics mid-fight. And that is what Froch evidently showed he could not do against the likes of Andre Ward.
When he was asked last year in 2020 how a fight with Gennady Golovkin would go, Carl pretty much gave the same kind of prediction in that he would come through with brute strength. But those top calibre boxers, like Alvarez and Golovkin, have the ring IQ and the toughness to outthink opponents who plan to use nothing but force.
I do not believe that Alvarez would have owned the power to stop Carl. But he has plenty enough talent to outbox the bigger guy and take it on points in a reasonably entertaining scrap.
