By Terence Dooley
Nottingham’s Carl ‘The Cobra’ Froch is still reeling from his narrow points defeat to Mikkel Kessler in Herning, Denmark and has been further demoralised by the uncertainty over his next fight, a third round win-or-bust encounter against Arthur Abraham for passage intro the Super Six final stages. Froch, 32, believes that the fight should take place in Nottingham and assumed that promoter Mick Hennessy had secured this only to find out that the venue arrangements have not been pinned down.
“Hennessy reckons that he had a deal to get the fight in Nottingham,” revealed Froch when speaking to Matt Christie in this week’s Boxing News. “Then he said it was only a handshake so I’ve not had the best job done with me in terms of getting the fight in Nottingham. I wish I’d done the deal myself and you can quote me on that. I’d have made sure I had it on paper.”
Froch had threatened to pull out of the tournament if he did not get his way over the location of the Abraham fight only to find out that he is locked into a contract. “I have financial and legal obligations to Showtime so I can’t pull out unless I retire,” admitted Froch.
“So if it’s not mutually agreed it won’t be a case of me pulling out of the Super six and retiring, it will have to be at a neutral venue. Which means it would be in America. It’s England or America as far as I’m concerned. I’m not going to Germany or Sweden or anywhere East of Nottingham because I can’t win on points out there.”
However, Sauerland, who promote Abraham, insist that the fight should take place in the most economically viable location, ruling out a trip to the States, where the fans are unlikely to turn out in big numbers to watch two European fighters, leaving Germany as the most likely option - Froch, 26-1 (20), may have to do a u-turn on this one.
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