Four-time world super middleweight champion Carl Froch announced his retirement from boxing yesterday at age 38 after more than a year out of the ring, saying “the desire has gone”. Steve Luckings looks back on five of the best fights of a career that yielded 33 wins — 24 by knockout — from 35 fights.
v Jean Pascal, 2008
None of the Nottingham boxer’s 35-career fights personified his grit and determination more than his 12-round war of attrition with the Canadian Pascal. It was revealed after the fight that Froch had a perforated eardrum and a cracked rib from his final sparring session before the fight but he refused to pull out and won in a unanimous decision.
v Jermain Taylor, 2009
Four months after being crowned champion, Froch looked like he would surrender it to the former undisputed middleweight king after being knocked down for the first time in his career in the third round. He trailed the American on all three judges scorecards at the start of the final round but he then twice sent Taylor to the canvas and the fight was stopped with 14 seconds left.
v George Groves II, 2014
Froch cut down Groves’s range and nullified his rival’s speed. The final knockout of Froch’s career would also be the most brutal, feigning to hit Groves with a jab before delivering a right-hand missile in Round 8 that left his opponent in a crumpled heap with his left leg buckled underneath him.
v Lucian Bute, 2012
Froch won the IBF Super Middleweight strap with a cerebral performance against the Romanian-born Bute to become a three-time world champion. After a lacklustre start, Froch turned on the afterburners and blew the previously undefeated Bute away by the end of Round 5.
v Mikkel Kessler II, 2013
Kessler had inflicted the first defeat of Froch’s career three years previous and, though never the quickest boxer, Froch’s jab in this fight was accurate and superbly timed as the Englishman took victory in a unanimous decision.
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