By Kevin Francis, courtesy of The Daily Star

BRITISH boxing is on the ropes after a woeful week in which Amir Khan and Carl Froch lost their world titles in the United States.

Khan’s controversial light-welterweight points defeat by Lamont Peterson in Washington was bad enough for the UK scene.

But seven days later in Atlantic City, Froch ended up with a comprehensive points defeat at the hands of Andre Ward, 27, in the final of the Super Six tournament.

The dashing of Froch’s hope of becoming the best super-middleweight on the planet means we now have just one world champion.

WBO light-heavyweight king Nathan Cleverly is the only Brit currently able to put a world title belt around his stomach.

And if you throw in David Haye’s beating by Wladimir Klitschko and Dereck Chisora being robbed by the judges of the chance to become European heavyweight champion, it all rounds off a bad year for the Brits.

But while Haye famously blamed a broken toe for the loss of his WBA title in July, Nottingham bruiser Froch admitted that he has no-one to blame but himself for surrendering his WBC crown to the WBA champ from California.

Froch, 34, said: “I just started too slowly.

“My worry was that you can start too fast against a guy like Ward and you can throw punches for the sake of them and walk into counter-punches.

“You have to be careful. I was tentative, sitting back a little too much and waiting. But I have to admit that I let myself down.”

Judges Craig Metcalfe and John Stewart scored the fight in Ward’s favour by 115-113 while English judge John Keane was less charitable and gave it to the Oakland fighter by 118-110.

In reality, the margin was that wide.

Froch added: “A couple of the judges made it 115-113 so a fast start would have won me a couple more of the early rounds.”

He never once got to grips with Ward’s cagey style and intelligent boxing and became the latest British fighter to lose his world titles abroad in 2011.But Cobra Carl believes that if he is offered a rematch he could learn from his mistakes and triumph over his unbeaten rival.

He said: “I honestly feel I could beat Andre Ward on a good night.

“I’d have to work on some technical things.

“I will go home and watch a video of this fight, even though it won’t be pleasant viewing, and learn from it.”

Tags: Carl Froch , Andre Ward , Ward-Froch , Ward vs Froch