Is Froch too clumsy and slow to Beat Dirrell?

Boxingnews24.com Scott Gilfoid11th September, 2009

The best part of the Super Six tournament is that the less talented fighters will be quickly weeded out of the competition in the group I part of the tournament. This is where I expect WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch to be left by the wayside, wondering what happened. I'm hoping that Froch can do well because he seems like a find lad, but the clumsiness and lack of hand speed will probably be too much for him.

His first opponent will be the talented American Andre Dirrell (18-0, 13 KO's), who at this point appears to be everything that Froch is not. Whereas Dirrell is fast, athletic and an excellent mover in the ring, Froch is slow, slightly uncoordinated and moves like a tank with a broken track.

I had hoped that Froch, 32, would get a chance against a more beatable fighter, someone like Jermain Taylor or Arthur Abraham in his first fight of the tournament. At least in that way, Froch would get a brief bit of glory and some confidence before he takes on the toughest part of the Super Six tournament, facing the murderer's row of the competition in Dirrell, Andre Ward and Mikkel Kessler.

I kind of see Froch, Abraham and Taylor as the ugly ducklings of the Super Six tourney, the weaker ones that need to be weeded out by the superior super middleweights. It's rather unfortunate for Froch that he had to take on perhaps the best of the fighters in the 27-year-old 2004 U.S. Bronze Medalist Andre Dirrell.

However, it's perhaps for the best, because at least it will get the suffering over quicker for Froch and not give him false hopes by giving him a brief illusion that he actually has a chance to win the tournament. Believe me; Froch has no chance in this tournament.

Who knows? Maybe if Showtime has another tournament in the future matching super middleweights like Sakio Bika, Mads Larsen, Karoly Balzsay, Denis Inkin, Karo Murat and Jeff Lacy, now I could see Froch having a better than average chance of winning that one.

Dirrell has looked a world above Froch in his last four fights, beating up Anthony Hanshaw, Mike Paschall, Victor Oganov and Derrick Findley. The speed and power that Dirrell showed in all of those fights were extraordinary. And while those fighters aren't ranked as high as Jermain Taylor and Jean Pascal, I think they're more than good enough for boxing experts and fans to see how good Dirrell is as a fighter.

I think there's a place for Froch in this tournament, but I just can't figure it out at this moment. I would like for him to at least come in 4th, but right now I see this as being an embarrassment for Froch with him losing every one of his group I fights. This, of course, will knock Froch out of the tournament, sending him home to his beloved Nottingham minus his WBC super middleweight title.

Froch will have a very tough time with Dirrell. This isn't the type of fighter that Froch can plod after and walk down like some of the limited fighters that he's faced in his seven year pro career. If Froch tries that with Dirrell, he's going to have to eat a lot of the American's punches as he inches forward at a snails pace.

For every punch that Froch lands in the fight, he will probably get hit with 50 from Dirrell. This is a fighter that is very hard to hit under the best of circumstances, and with Froch's nonexistent hand speed, it will be near impossible for him to do.

If there was a way of transplanting the hand speed of Joe Calzaghe into the body of Froch, then maybe I would give Froch a little bit better of a chance. However, in transplanting the hand speed, there would still be the problem of Froch's clumsiness to deal with. All the hand speed in the world won't help a fighter if they're tripping over their own feet when they move around the ring.

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