Seen this one in boxing news mag. What do we think? 12 rounds at 168lbs? What a war this would have been!
At 168lbs Froch is too big too strong for Steve Collins, and Collins has nothing to keep him off, as Froch bullies him to a decision win.
I got to train with Collins at Pettronelli's gym in 1990, and Froch is one of my favorites. What a great match up. To close to call for me.
I'd favour Collins circa the first Eubank fight albeit in a grueler. He's a bit underrated and misconstrued these days imo whereas Froch is the opposite. Although he was hindered on occasion by sloppy technique, ugly arm punches and launching from too far out, Collins was a genuinely very good fighter at his best, moreso at 160. Quite skilled as a textbook boxer puncher, certainly more than Froch, and deceptively versatile in that he could box well at range with underrated (if inconsistent) offensive timing and a rather good long one -two based punching arsenal. Capable of being disciplined and could slip punches reasonably well too in textbook fashion and counter well, but comfortable walking fighters down if necessary. You don't box-punch on near even terms with Reggie Johnson and Eubank imo if you're crude or unskilled, nor come back from a rough start against a great fighter like McCallum as a young, inexperienced man to then push him back and fight on near even terms (albeit riding out a spell being seriously hurt). The aspect of his game that ironically gets overrated the most imo is his chin, which a lot of people mistakenly seem to think was his best attribute by a mile in relation to his skillset. I've seen this fight mooted a few times over the years and two things in Collins favour that rarely get mentioned (along with him having better textbook form and skill than Froch and equally effective awkwardness) are that he was a.) faster than Froch and b.) of equal size and strength even at 168. He was massive at 160 and still a tank at 168. Devon saying that Froch would bully him physically is rather unlikely for me, he was extremely strong albeit not a hard puncher. Froch deserves a lot of respect for the way he repeatedly took on the relevant names at 168 one after the other in an entertaining era and recovered from losses, but the actual quality of the fighters he beat gets overstated I think. He recovered well from the Ward humiliation and being legitimately beaten by the past prime Kessler who was in rapid physical decline to impose himself very well physically and mentally on Abraham and the psychologically brittle Bute. I do think people forget or turn a blind eye to how much he had to battle with Taylor(who was inferior to Collins imo), Kessler in the rematch to a degree (who was past it at that point and looked like he was trying to box on mini-stilts), the aged, past-prime Johnson coming down in weight, Dirrell, Groves first time around etc. He was about as crude as it's possible to be at the world level and fundamentally unsound without a full grasp over the hands-down style he used, nor the speed to make up for it. He was though very awkward, rangy and strong with good power, a good chin and excellent stamina as well as a good amount of self belief and grit to make up for being horrifically slow and limited in a technical sense. A really commendable overachiever when all is said and done. A tedious, arrogant, dull fecker to listen to though.
I agree I do think Froch gets a bit overrated nowadays. I do admire his toughness and his willingness to fight anyone especially away from home which is to be commended. But I think his H2H status gets a bit overrated personally. Dirrell made Froch look silly and that was a bad decision IMO. Froch was losing handily on points to Taylor until scoring a miracle come from behind KO. And let's be real Taylor also had stamina issues and he was probably a bit shopworn at this point aswell. I had Groves 6-2 up against Froch up until the stoppage which was one of the worst stoppages I've seen in recent times. Froch always looked beatable to me despite being a very hard man he was very crude with hardly any defence. I think Collins is getting a bit undersold here he was never really beaten easily by anyone. And the fighters who beat Collins were upper echelon fighters like Reggie Johnson, Mike McCallum, Sumbu Kalambay. The Johnson one was also very close. Not to mention Collins had a 9-0 record in Super Middleweight title fights.
