By Edward Chaykovsky
For the last few months, Carl Froch and James DeGale have traded their fair share of words in the press. DeGale was the mandatory challenger to Froch's world IBF super middleweight world title and Froch vacated that title because he didn't have any interest in the fight.
DeGale (20-1, 14KOs) will face Andre Dirrell (24-1, 16KOs) for the vacant IBF title on Saturday night in Boston.
If Froch had any bad words to say about DeGale, he has far less respect for Dirrell. Froch won what many felt was a controversial decision over four years ago in Nottingham.
"He just comes across to me as a coward. He's just not a very manly man, the way he ran and held against me and the way he seemed to throw himself on the floor against Arthur Abraham. I genuinely hope DeGale does a job on him," Froch wrote on Sky Sports.
"Dirrell just doesn't seem to want to push himself, which is something we saw from his brother Anthony a couple of weeks ago, when he lost his world title to Badou Jack. I remember thinking, 'go on then, throw some punches, it's your world title on the line, show some enthusiasm', but he didn't."
And that is what we've had from Andre Dirrell before. When he came over here to fight me, people said he'd beaten me or it was a hometown decision. What a load of rubbish. He came over to the UK, he and ran and held and just didn't want to fight. You can't nick a world title, you've got to win it. I out-worked him as well and won it fair and square."