For boxing, it's going to be the good old days all over again in London, England this May 25. When Carl Froch (30-2, 22 KOs) squares off with Mikkel Kessler (46-2, 35 KOs) for the IBF and WBA super middleweight titles, it will be a return to prominence for a weight class that has been among the glamor divisions of the sport in recent years.
From 2009 to 2011, the Showtime Super Six tournament brought together the best available 168-pounders on the planet and set up the framework for them to fight. The tournament gave us some of the most interesting fights in the sport over those two years, and it established a true world champion at super middleweight: Andre Ward.
Froch and Kessler were both major players in the Super Six.
Kessler lost to Ward in the opening round, then came back to beat Froch by unanimous decision in an exciting, competitive fight. But he subsequently withdrew from the tournament due to an eye injury suffered in the loss to Ward.
With new life in the tournament, Froch proceeded to battle his way back through into the finals, where he also lost to Andre Ward in November of 2011.
In September of 2012, Ward put an exclamation point on his tournament victory by TKOing light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson in 10. Since that night, the debate has been whether or not Ward deserves to be viewed as the true pound-for-pound king.
Meanwhile, Froch and Kessler have soldiered on, continuing to demonstrate that they are Nos. 2 and 3 in the division. Last May, Carl Froch exposed previously undefeated Lucian Bute, stopping him in five. Later in the year he knocked out Yusaf Mack.
Kessler stopped both Allan Green and Brian Magee last year. Those two guys may not be world-beaters, but they haven't exactly made careers out of being steamrolled, either.
So two years after the Super Six solved everything, everything has remained pretty much the same. The IBF and the WBA will recognize the winner of this bout as their world champion. But everybody knows the fight is really about establishing who is in second place behind Andre Ward.
As a result, people will speculate on whether or not the winner will fight Andre Ward. If Froch wins, it's natural. After he avenges his first career loss against Kessler, the perfect storyline would be for him to go after Andre Ward next.
Kessler's only other loss came to Joe Calzaghe in November of 2007. Calzaghe would go on to retire undefeated without ever rematching with Kessler.
On the media call I participated in last week, both Froch and Kessler acknowledged that they would like to have a rematch with Ward, though they were understandably more interested in talking about the extremely difficult fight staring them in the face.
But the winner of this fight is going to be spoken about as a possible future opponent for Andre Ward. He might have beaten them both in fairly decisive fashion already, but neither has gone anywhere since.
I am predicting that Froch will win this fight, but I am far from convinced that he will fight Andre Ward next as a result. I think there's a good chance he fights fellow Brit George Groves, an undefeated prospect who looked outstanding against Glen Johnson.
If Froch can get by that one, I think he will have the star power in London to lure Andre Ward across the pond.
On the media call, Froch made it clear that he would prefer to fight Ward in London. “Now it's Andre Ward's turn to travel the world and show he's a true champion,” Froch stated.
Froch made no excuses for his loss to Ward, calling the champion a “top, top fighter who knows how to win boxing matches.” But Froch clearly enjoys his ever-rising stardom in his native country and would prefer to fight keep fighting there going forward.
And for business purposes, it might make a lot of sense to do Froch-Ward II in London. On last week's media call, Bernie Bahrmasel said that Kessler-Froch II had sold 18,000 tickets in about three hours.
If Froch fought a rematch with Ward, I have a hard time believing it would sell as well in Vegas as it would in London.
Froch has the kind of fans who would be able to rally around the argument that he was an even hungrier and more determined fighter than in the past, and that with 20,000 of his countrymen screaming support, he might have a chance to beat the great champion from the states.
In Vegas you are mostly going to meet the hard-bitten realists who know there's no reality-based reason to expect that Carl Froch would be able to beat Andre Ward now. After all, he didn't come close last time.
First of all, I don't believe a lack of determination and focus has ever been a problem for Carl Froch. His problems with Andre Ward mostly stemmed from the fact that Ward had a pretty easy time reading him and reacting. He was able to stop Froch from even getting into position to throw his punches.
Ward is still 29 and has never had a truly hard night's work in his life. So I have no reason to expect him to be anything but completely sharp whenever he next gets in the ring.
And I just don't see Carl Froch ever beating a completely sharp Andre Ward. Still, Froch has looked great since his last fight with Ward, and if a return fight ends up happening in London, I will be excited for it.
But I think Ward will have a pretty easy time outclassing Carl Froch once more.
If Kessler manages to come out on top against Froch, I think a rematch with Ward is the only possible fight he will want. And I think he will struggle even more than he did in the first fight.
Ultimately, I don't think either Froch or Kessler would have much chance at all against Ward. A rematch with Froch would probably do better as a big-time fight.
And it would end up looking a lot like their last fight, except that Ward might win even more decisively.
But this should have nothing to do with how we view the fight this weekend, and true boxing fans know this. In Froch's own words, Kessler-Froch II is “a proper, big fight between two warriors.” Forget about any alphabet soup titles; there is so much pride on the line here between these two that we are guaranteed 12 hard-fought, action-packed rounds.
This should be a night when what happens in the ring will be a lot more important than anything the rest of us can say or write about it.
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