Aside from intangibles like chin, stamina, and heart. . . His instincts. . . While not having great base hand, and foot speed, he does have good "boxing reflexes". . . He's just a natural born fighter. . . His awkwardness. . . His range (very long arms). . . He has an "up-jab" from the waist, which is hard to see coming. . . And finally, his right uppercut. . .
I was hesitating between 7 and 8 for skills actually. You can really see he knows his stuff. He's awkward but there's logic in it, much like in Vitali's case.
1) His chin is epic (fighters struggle to hurt him and this mentally breaks many down) 2) His self belief 3) His physical strength (only perhaps Abraham was stronger than him in the ring) 4) His stamina - he keeps going all night 5) His will to win, determination and fighting heart 6) His solid power punching - he is naturally heavy handed enough to make you think 'oh ****') 7) His jab is very underrated 8 ) He throws vicious combinations and mixes in shots from all angles like his crazy uppercut - he is a very awkward guy to fight 9) He stays in peak condition all the time and never gets out of shape; he is therefore never drained and can focus on boxing, rather than losing weight during his entire training camp 10) He is very aggressive and perturbs opponents with his rushing attacks (when they counter they don't hurt him - see point 1.) 11) The fact he can box if he wants to (he frustrated Bute last night by being patient in 1 and 2 so Bute got impatient realising he couldn't counter Froch. So he came in and Froch countered him and then knocked his head off) 12) The main reason: His girlfriend is ridiculously good looking and probably lets him do unspeakable things to her on the condition that he wins only big elite fights. As he lost to Ward, he was proper up for this one. No wonder he looked so happy after he had won. Come to think of it she looked happier...
Good point. . . All your other points are correct too, but this one of the more underrated aspect's of a boxer's mental game, and in turn, ability to win. . . Some boxers, despite all the puffery, and outwardly bravado, have no confidence, or self-belief deep down. . . Froch, even when facing boxers that are faster, smarter, and just "better", still believes he is the better man. . Like he seriously believes it. . . Even against Ward, down to the last second of Round 12, he thought he was the better man, and believed he could win.
Undoubtedly true. The man just believes in himself so much. He truly believes he just had an off night against Ward and was jobbed out of the decision against Kessler. It irked people at the beginning with Froch I think but now many people realise it has really helped propel him to the heights he has achieved.
He seems to be very good at picking the right moment to jump in in his unorthodox manner without getting countered to death. Very often he just seems to stand there, throwing a long, ineffectual jab and the suddenly he rushes with the right and starts roughing up his opponent. The top guys like Kessler and Ward were able to deal with it, but talented guys like Bute and to a lesser extent Direll didn't like it at all.
You know what I'll add another one - a big one.. 13) EXPERIENCE of fighting at the TOP level. In light of his recent run of opponents you could tell Froch just looked at Bute in the third round and thought 'wow, you haven't the speed of Dirrell, you don't have the toughness of Kessler or Johnson, you don't have the youth and tenacity of Pascal, you haven't the strength or power of Abraham and you don't have the trickiness and overall boxing ability of Ward - OK, this is not that hard, I am going to start throwing bombs.'
Hmmm I think Dirrell dealt with it better than Kessler did even though one guy got the win and the other didn't.