Three-time super-middleweight champion, Carl Froch, claims that he would have defeated a prime version of one of his super-middleweight rivals ‘ten times out of ten’.
Froch claimed world honours in the 168lb division with a win over Jean Pascal in 2008, beginning a run of twelve consecutive world title fights.
After two successful title defences against Jermain Taylor and Andre Dirrell, Froch picked up a first career defeat, at the hands of Mikkel Kessler, but bounced back with a win over Arthur Abraham to reclaim the vacant title, which he eventually lost to Andre Ward in 2011.
The Nottinghamshire hero knocked out Lucian Bute to earn the IBF title in his next fight, which he then unified with the WBA crown in a rematch against Mikkel Kessler. He went on to secure back-to-back wins against British rival, George Groves, in one of boxing’s great rivalries – although Froch believes that he would always have the beating of the Londoner.
“Prime George Groves against a prime Cobra? Can I say [I’d win] ten out of ten? I think I can, I think that I’d have beaten him ten times out of ten. Listen, the first time I boxed him, albeit a bit of a controversial, early stoppage by the great A-star referee that is Howard Foster, it was a bad night for me and I still won the fight.”
“In the rematch I trained properly, I wasn’t in my prime because I was thirty-six-years-old, and I ironed out Grovesy boy, in front of eighty-thousand at Wembley Stadium. So, I think that if we would’ve fought ten times, the best Groves versus the best me, ‘The Cobra’, I think that I would have beaten him ten times, I’ve got to be honest. Ten-nil to ‘The Cobra’.”
Froch and Groves are now good friends, although the latter is likely to disagree with Froch’s comments after their controversial first encounter.