Carl Froch on Arthur Abraham: 'I Could Have Done 25 Rounds'

By Lem Satterfield

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England's

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may have turned in a career-defining performance on Saturday night during a Showtime televised fight from the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki, Finland. There, Froch easily out-boxed Germany's former middleweight (160 pounds) titlist

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in a super middleweight (168 pounds) bout to regain the WBC belt he had lost in April to Denmark's WBA champion

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.

So dominant was Froch that over the three cards of the ringside judges, the Englishman lost only one of 36 rounds, this, to improve to 27-1, with 20 knockouts as Abraham slipped to 31-2, with 25 stoppages.

In victory, Froch gained the No. 2 seed behind WBA belt-holder

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(23-0, 13 KOs) and a berth into the semifinals of Showtime's Super Six Super Middleweight World Boxing Classic, as well as the right to face third seeded former world champion

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(51-14-1, 35 KOs) in 2011 as Ward meets the fourth seeded Abraham.

Froch is the only man to have beaten current WBC light heavyweight king

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(26-1, 16 KOs), a winner of five straight who will put his crown on the line in a Dec. 18 defense against the legendary

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(51-5-1, 32 KOs). In this Q&A with FanHouse, taken at 5 a.m. from Helsinki only a few hours after his clash with Abraham, Froch discussed his performance and the prospects of facing Johnson.

FanHouse: Was Arthur Abraham as easy an opponent to beat as you made it appear?

Carl Froch: No. It was a hard fight, but I made it look easy because of the tactics that I applied. But it was hard to stay focused and to concentrate and to do what I had to do to win. I know that it looked to be easy, but that's because I made it look easy.

But it was hard to make it easy, if you know what I mean. I just wanted to remain disciplined and composed and to basically not go in recklessly for the finish. I'm really ecstatic that I was able to put this kind of performance on against an opponent like Arthur Abraham.


Was it so hard because you had to punch him so much?

[Laughs.] I just had to sort of resist going in for the finish and opening up and risking getting hit with big counter shots and getting countered myself.


Was there a point where you felt like you really had Arthur Abraham hurt?

Yeah, there was, actually. But I don't know what round it was. There was a point where I thought that I had him hurt, but I'm not sure what round it was. I'm thinking that it was maybe round five or six.

Or maybe in like the seventh round, I think that I had him on the ropes and I was hitting him quite a lot, actually. Definitely.


Carl, how impressed will your new born son, Rocco, be, in a few years down the road, when you show him the video of this fight?

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[Laughs.] Yeah, he'll definitely be impressed with the old man. I'll show that to him that with pride, and he'll definitely be proud of his dad. As I said, I'm really ecstatic that I put on this kind of performance.


Do you feel that you demonstrated that your boxing skills are under rated?

Most definitely, and that's what I had been working on for the last four months -- movement and using my footwork and my boxing ability. I'll be honest, I never got out of second gear. I just did what I had to do to get the win and not get hurt.

I just executed my game plan perfectly. I kept hearing my corner man, Robert McCracken, in there because there were a couple of rounds where I had to steam forward and let some body or combinations go.

I could have really tried to get Arthur Abraham out of there. But he could have answered back with a wild shot and caught me. I mean, as you know, I've got a granite chin and can take the shots of the best super middleweights.

I fought a guy who is a light heavyweight, Jean Pascal, so I can take the punches of some of the best fighters in the world. But why would you risk getting hit when you don't have to?

Every time that I went in to try to finish him, I could hear Rob telling me, 'back off, back off,' you know, shouting at me from the corner. You know, I listened to him. Otherwise, it probably would have been a little bit more exciting if I wouldn't have had Rob directing me.

But he knows what I should do. You know, he's the master and I'm the student, and I listened to him, and it all worked out.

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I realize that it was always part of your game plan to go to Arthur Abraham's body, but at what point did you know thats you were really hurting him downstairs?

Well, I was definitely attacking the body, and he winced a few times and felt them heavily with the body shots and he buckled a couple of times. So I just kept picking my opportunities and I didn't want to get careless and get caught with an over hand right or anything silly.

So I was picking the body shots nicely, and the body shots were hurting him, and I just did what I had to do, basically.


Carl, did you ever feel Arthur Abraham's power?

No, I was never stunned. I walked into a couple of silly jabs when I was jabbing him. So I did get caught with a couple of stiff jabs from him. He has hard hands. I mean, his fists are hard. I think that it was in round 12 where we got into a swing-off, and he caught me a little bit right behind the left ear.

That's going to knock your balance off a little bit, but it was nothing serious. I've taken shots from other fighters and have had more trouble off of accumulative shots. But I didn't give him the opportunity to do anything like that.

So, no, I didn't really feel his power. He hit me with a couple of good shots, but nothing troublesome really. So I really didn't feel his power, and I didn't have any trouble or any problems with him at all.


What is your perspective of Glen Johnson, and your overall perception of what type of fight that's going to be for you?

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I didn't see the Allan Green fight where he scored the knockout. I saw the highlights at the end, but I'm going to do what I do best, and continue to do what I do best. That means that I'm going to continue to use that jab and box and move and keep out of the way.

I don't think that Johnson can get past that jab, and if he does, then there's a right hand waiting for him. So, I'm just going to keep jabbing and double-up on the jab like I did against Arthur Abraham. I could have done 25 rounds at that pace tonight.

That was an easy night's work for me, physically, and, basically, it was more of a mental game and a game of concentration of not trading and continuing to make adjustments and to box over the 12-round distance of the fight.