Roy Jones Jr & Emanuel Steward were "On The Ropes" - NOW AVAILABLE ON DEMAND! 7/13

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His views on how Joe Calzaghe would have fared if he was included in the Super Six with its current line-up:

“Well you’ve got to say that Calzaghe was a great fighter. One thing he had going for him was his work rate and his pace and his ability to sort of attack in a fight. He would always land his shots even if it wasn’t that exciting he threw fast shots and a lot of them. So he seemed to win every round he boxed because of pure work rate and the speed of his hands, but he was a bit suspect around the chin. He hit the deck a couple of times in his last few fights against Hopkins and against Roy Jones. You know there are a couple of big punchers in this tournament so you never know. He would certainly deserve a place in the Super Six, Calzaghe, what a great fighter.

Back to what we were saying about the best fighting the best in this tournament, it pits the best with the best consistently. That’s something Calzaghe never did. You could probably count on one hand, out of Calzaghe’s 44-45 fight career, tough opponents and legitimate threat opponents that he’s had and that’s over a 44-45 fight career. You can count them on one hand. In my last five fights, I beat Jean Pascal who’s a great fighter. He beat the ‘Bad’ Chad Dawson, so he’s dominating light heavyweight at the minute. So I boxed Pascal, and then I boxed Jermain Taylor, and then I boxed Dirrell, then I boxed Kessler, and now I’ve got Abraham. So this is five fights, top level fights consecutively one after the other and I’ve only had 27 fights in my career. Now that’s the sort of thing that you have to do to secure your legacy and become a legend to remain remembered when you retire. I’m not taking any credit away from Joe Calzaghe or giving him any unnecessary stick, but he’s not going to be remembered as being all-time great and that’s because he didn’t fight the best fighters, and the top fighters that he did fight they were well past their best and weren’t at their peak. Myself, I got a loss on my record but I can assure you when I retire from boxing people are going to say, ‘That Carl Froch, he fought everybody. He never swerved or ducked anybody and he was a top, top level fighter and someone to be remembered’ and that’s what this tournament is doing for all the fighters. It’s securing my legacy as an all-time great which potentially wouldn’t have happened without the tournament, so that’s why I think it’s such a great thing for boxing.”

His views on Amir Khan as a fighter and his improvements made since teaming up with Freddie Roach, and his views on Khan’s claim last week that Froch needs to “tighten up his defense”:

“I’ve not seen much improvement under Freddie Roach to be honest. I mean Khan’s developing and growing all the time as a fighter because he’s quite a young man, and he’s developing and getting stronger. He’s very quick. He’s very fit because he’s young and obviously healthy. He does twelve rounds at a pace. The only major flaw Khan’s got is he’s got a glass jaw. Now when you got a glass jaw you have to learn to adapt, and that adaptation has to come in the way of fast legs, fast hands, good movement, and fitness because if you can’t take a shot fitness does help you absorb a shot a little bit better. So Khan’s now learned to move, and box, and keep out of the way of his opponent for twelve rounds which is difficult to do. You’ve got to be super fit to do that, and that’s what he does.

You know, he said I’ve got to tighten my defense up. That’s fair enough. Maybe there is room for improvement in my defense, but there’s always room for improvement in anybody’s boxing style. The fact that my defense is a little bit low means that I get my big shots off a little bit quicker. Sometimes I shoot from the hip and bring my devastating shots, my uppercuts and my hooks, from awkward angles. If I had my defense as tight as Arthur Abraham’s for example, I wouldn’t be able to get them big punches off.

You know boxing is about different people’s opinions and it’s open to criticism whether it be positive or negative. All I’ll say is Amir Khan is a decent fighter. He impressed me in the Olympic, but he’s still got quite a lot to prove as a professional. He got absolutely flattened and knocked out in a round by Prescott which everybody’s seen and since then he’s not really fought any credible opponents for me to say, ‘You know what, he’s a decent lad who’s doing well and he’s fighting top level fighters’. He’s swerved a couple of fights. It’s time he stepped up to the plate. He needs to start fighting the top names in his weight division and getting the respect of other fighters by being involved in top fights. At the minute he’s hand-picking his opponents and he’s not really impressing anybody. There is no one really putting him up there at the minute, but he’s young and he’s got time on his side. I’m sure if he sticks with it he can do very well as a professional, but I’ve yet to name someone on his record that’s a top level fighter where I’m impressed with the win. That flattening by Prescott was certainly a bad one.”

His views on Jean Pascal’s victory against Chad Dawson:

“I think that was an excellent win for Jean Pascal. The performance he put on against Chad Dawson was brilliant. He was energetic, he was busy, he was moving well, he was boxing at times, and at times he was working in flurries and putting Chad Dawson on his back foot which I didn’t think he’d be able to do. He’s not a big, big light heavyweight Jean Pascal. Obviously I fought him at super middle. He’s around about my height and a lot of the light heavyweights seem to be taller and bigger and stronger, but he put one hell of a performance on which I knew he could. I mean a lot of people were rubbish talking him saying, ‘Oh, he’s got no chance against Chad Dawson, Carl Froch beat him, blah, blah, blah’. I was listening to it, and I thought you know what this guy gets no credit really and I don’t get as much credit as I deserve sometimes in boxing.

I just felt like he put on a phenomenal performance against a top, top fighter in Chad Dawson. He beat him fair and square and he’ll beat him in the rematch as well after he’s wiped the floor with Hopkins, because I’m not giving Hopkins a chance in this fight. Hopkins might move and hold on and fiddle his way through, but Pascal is too fresh and too fast and too fit for the likes of Bernard Hopkins. That’s going to be a one-sided fight. Pascal will probably beat him on points or maybe even knock him over.”

On whether he is still interested in moving up to light heavyweight to have a rematch with Pascal after he finishes his business in the Super Six:

“Oh definitely. I’ve already got my flight booked to Quebec on the 18th of December to watch Jean Pascal against Bernard Hopkins. I’m going out there with my trainer, and my girlfriend, and my son Rocco. We’re going to go out there and we’re going to give him some support and watch the fight, because that’s a fight I want in the future. I’ve got big, big respect for Jean Pascal as he has me. We’re sort of friends. We talk now and again on the phone. A friend of mine who lives in Canada and one of my agents in Canada, he’s often in a café with him in the morning and he puts him on the phone and we have a little chat. So it’s two warriors with great respect for each other, like myself and Mikkel Kessler. We sort of befriended each other after a great epic battle and I’m behind Jean Pascal and I’m wishing him all the best. That’s a fight that he probably wants more than me because the only blemish on his record is that of ‘The Cobra’. So if he could get the rematch with me and put that straight he’ll be happy, and I’m obviously going to be happy to become a two weight world champion because that’s a fight I think I can win even at light heavyweight. That’s why boxing is so interesting and so exciting, because there’s no animosity and there’s no needle between me and Pascal. It’s strictly business, it’s strictly sport, and when we fight each other at light heavyweight, what a great fight for the fans and the boxing public in general.”

 

His views on the upcoming heavyweight match-up between David Haye and Audley Harrison:

“Yeah, that’s an interesting match. I think David Haye is a massive favorite for all the right reasons. He’s a puncher, he’s the world champion, and he has a big heart, loads of courage, and he’s aggressive. When he’s in there he knows what he’s doing, where Audley Harrison on the other hand tends to be a little bit gun shy and tends to be on his back foot and not do the work. He’s done nothing really as a professional to impress me. However, he did knockout Michael Sprott later on in that fight which obviously means he can punch a little bit. So he has got a puncher’s chance, but that’s only if David Haye is very careless and out of shape, which I don’t think he’s going to be. He’s not going to be careless and he’s not out of shape, because he’s training, sparring hard. I speak to David Haye on a weekly or fortnightly basis. He’s in London and I’m up in Nottingham, but we’re old amateur friends, as is Audley Harrisson actually. I was on the team with Audley Harrison, but I’m more friendly with David Haye than Harrison. So we kept in touch after we split up from the amateurs.

The safe money has got to be on David Haye. You know David Haye’s a puncher. I think the first punch he hits Harrison with, the fight could be close to being over. He’s just got to be careful and not rush in because he could walk into something serious on Harrison, but even if he walks into one Haye, he’ll be sound and he’ll come back and he’ll do the business. I’m sure of that. So I think that’s going to be an impressive win for Haye. It’s an interesting fight and it’s one that the public in Britain are getting excited about, because everybody knows who Audley Harrison is from the Olympics and obviously David Haye, when he beat Nicolai Valuev—the David and Goliath scenario, the whole publicity behind that captured the public’s imagination. So David Haye is a big name and a big star in Britain, and Audley Harrison is a big name for the right or wrong reasons. The more you love him the more you hate him. I don’t want to be nasty towards him, but he’s not got a massive loving fan base in Britain to say the least. When people turn up, they turn up a lot of the times to see him flattened. It’s an interesting fight, but one that David Haye is going to win I’m sure.”

 

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