Froch on Ringside

Sorry, meant HBO. What's to say HBO wouldn't have came knocking for the Kessler fight, if he didn't fight Manfredo? Of course they would.

 

Would they? Two Euro fighters with little profile in the US?

The Manfredo fight was clearly precursor to getting Calzaghe in a big fight on HBO.

 

Little profile? Was you aware of Calzaghe schooling Lacy, who the broadcasters and Americans thought a lot of.

I think they would have definitely gone for it, Kessler was the 1 contender fighting the champion in the division, both exciting and very good operators, fighting in front of 50,000 people with a crazy atmosphere, why would HBO not want it.

 

IIRC the Manfredo fight was one requested by HBO to raise Joe's profile in the States against a name American opponent.

 

When HBO broadcast it, it received one of their lowest World Championship Boxing ratings of that year. Lacy wasn't a star either, actually. He was a hyped title holder who had only featured on Showtime until that point.

Showtime was starting to get good ratings and Lacy was one of its key signings. But he wasn't a crossover star. Outside of the hardcore, no one really knew who Joe or Mikkel was.

That was why HBO wanted Manfredo. He was a bigger name than most at 168, just by virtue of being on a primetime US TV show.

That's it.

 

Absolutely. I didn't intend to pick any holes in Froch's recent fights as there's no way that anyone can because he has fought good fighter after good fighter. What I should've made clear is that I made that post within the context of a previous poster saying there was an obvious 'gulf in class' between the level of fighters Froch has faced and those that Calzaghe did. No such gulf exists, it's just that Froch has had to shoehorn successive fights against good fighters into the end of his career after his interminable 'rise' under Hennessy.

Exactly. Froch said on Ringside that Degale and Groves both need a couple of 'tests' to propel them into the public consciousness as being deserving of a fight against him. Bearing in mind that Calzaghe retired in 2008 and had his last fight at 168 in Nov 2007, the link below makes rather hypocritical reading for Froch.

http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?cat=boxer&human_id=97570

I actually agree with Froch that a couple of step-up fights would do Groves and Degale good. But looking there at Froch's progress up to 2007 when Calzaghe had his last fight at 168, then Degale and Groves have a far a greater public profile right now than he did back then; when Froch had already been endlessly calling out Calzaghe for some time.

 

it sure was and Taylor was clouted as the guy to fight Calzaghe after but he hid behind the $

 

Fair points. :good

 

I'm just bitter that they never fought, I mean Manfredo frigging Jr ffffffs, could have had Froch-Calzaghe, would have been too early for Carl at that point though, still think he'd have been competitive.

 

The Ring Mag rankings confirms this.
http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/The_Ring_Magazine's_Annual_Ratings:_2006