FROCH DOMINATES ABRAHAM TO WIN BACK WBC WORLD TITLE BELT
Super Six World Boxing Classic Semifinals Set With Carl Froch vs. Glen Johnson and Andre Ward vs. Arthur Abraham
Replay of Saturday’s Telecast Tuesday, Nov. 30, at 10 p.m. ET/PT on SHO2
HELSINKI, Finland (Nov. 27, 2010)–Carl Froch turned in the most dominant performance of his career, recapturing the World Boxing Council (WBC) super middleweight world championship Saturday night with a unanimous decision against an overwhelmed Arthur Abraham in the final Group Stage 3 fight of the Super Six World Boxing Classic on SHOWTIME.
The 33-year-old Froch (27-1, 20 KOs), of Nottingham, England, handed the Armenian-born Abraham (31-2, 25 KOs) of Berlin, Germany, his second consecutive loss. The judges scores were 120-108 twice and 119-109 in favor of Froch, who rebounded from his only career loss back in April to Mikkel Kessler.
With a tournament record of 2-1, Froch earned two points for the win for a total of four and will face Glen Johnson in the Semifinals. Johnson and Abraham are tied with three points but Johnson wins the judges’ scorecard tiebreak to grab the third seed. That leaves Abraham in fourth and a Semifinal date with tournament point leader Andre Ward.
“He’s an old wise fox,” Froch said of the 41-year-old Johnson. “He knows what he’s doing. He’s a great, great fighter. If Glen Johnson is watching I just want to say I look forward to that fight.”
The standings after the Group Stages are as follows:
FINAL GROUP STAGE SUPER SIX WORLD BOXING CLASSIC SCOREBOARD
Record Fighter Points
3-0 Andre Ward 6
2-1 Carl Froch 4
1-0, 1 KO Glen Johnson* 3
1-2, 1 KO Arthur Abraham 3
* Johnson wins tiebreaker based on total judges’ scorecard points.
SHOWTIME play-by-play announcer Steve Albert was duly impressed by Froch’s performance. “This has been a stunning display by Froch,” he said, after which analyst Steve Farhood replied. “And this has been a stunningly flat display by Abraham.”
“I knew I was going to be this dominating,” Froch told Farhood and the SHOWTIME viewers after the fight. “There were so many times I wanted to put my punches together and put my shots together but I just listened to my corner and they kept saying stand back and let him come. So that’s what I did.
“There were a few times when it got into a bit of a brawl but I didn’t want that. That would have been too dangerous and silly because Arthur Abraham is a big puncher and a very strong man. He knows what he’s doing. I knew if I executed my game plan it would be an easy night’s work and I proved that tonight. “He landed a few stiff jabs in there. He
tried to get a little dirty but the ref did a great job stopping that. I had some great sparring with (ShoBox alum) Edwin Rodriguez. That really helped me.”
Abraham was contrite and short following the bout. “I’m not sure what happened,” he said. “Nothing worked tonight. He was the better man tonight and he won. Everything I meant to do did not work.”
Saturday’s fights will re-air on Sho2 on Tuesday, Nov. 30, at 7 p.m. ET/PT. It will be available On Demand from Nov. 30 to Dec. 27.
As in September, I once again ran out of gas in the 10th & 11th championship rounds of October & November with this column, but I recovered to complete them and will unleash a few more flurries to close out the 12th and final round.
In the first week of October, Hassan N’Dam won a UD over Curtis Stevens in an eliminator for the right to challenge Jermaine Taylor who defeated aging Sam Soliman to regain the IBF Middleweight title. How Taylor even earned this title shot is another story altogether, but it is all irrelevant as he is now the champion. However he will not have too much time to savor his victory as he has assault and battery charges pending against him and an upcoming court fight that may turn out to be the toughest fight of his life, just when things started to look up for him in boxing, we wish him luck.
