By Rick Reeno

In a press release issued earlier today, undefeated super middleweight Carl Froch issued some harsh words in the direction of promoter Lou DiBella and former champion Jermain Taylor. With Joe Calzaghe moving forward with Roy Jones Jr. fight, the WBC super middleweight title has been declared vacant and the sanctioning body has ordered a bout between Froch and Taylor for the vacant title. Froch and his promoter Mick Hennessy are upset over Taylor's possible selection of Jeff Lacy for his next slated ring appearance in November.

“I’m delighted to get the title fight and just hope Taylor shows a real fighting heart and goes through with this fight,” said Froch. “I’ve heard he was talking about fighting Jeff Lacy next but that fight is a mismatch in my opinion. I would knock Lacy out in a round or two and it is an easy fight for Taylor, so I just hope Jermain doesn’t squirm out of this situation with me and I think the broadcasters shouldn’t allow him to either.

“I heard Lou DiBella has said ‘who the f*** is Carl Froch to American television', but he will know who the f*** the ‘Cobra’ is when his fighter is laying horizontal in front of him. Then I will ask him what does he know about boxing? In my opinion doing Taylor versus Lacy is just as bad as doing Kelly Pavlik versus Gary Lockett. It’s a mismatch and anyone who buys into that has got to be nuts in my opinion. DiBella says American TV isn’t interested in me but believe me they are. Once I knock out Taylor, I will do the same to Kelly Pavlik.”

As far as American television goes, Froch is not entirely correct. While nobody doubts his talents in the ring, industry insiders tell BoxingScene.com that HBO is more interested in seeing Taylor fight Lacy. DiBella is not overlooking a possible bout with Froch, but it has to make money to make sense.

"With all due respect to Mick and Carl, but in America people are saying 'who the Froch is Froch.' We are interested in the fight but we have to take a look at our alternatives and assess the commodity of it. I believe that Froch is  worthy guy, but his only TV appearance was against a fighter he looked mediocre against and it took place in Europe and was televised on ShoBox. I'm not taking shots at his ability, I'm making point.  The network paying the majority of the money is in the United States and he is an unknown commodity. Lacy fought his whole career in America, was a former Olympian, a former champion and has a lot more name recognition," DiBella said.

DiBella says he is not surprised with Froch's outbursts because it's a regular occurrence when it comes to British fighters who are planning to debut in America.

"Here is my problem with British fighters. They beat these stooges in Britain for these Commonwealth titles, these UK titles and these Euro titles and then they want to come to America for the huge money and want to get treated like the hometown guys. They can't have it both ways," DiBella said.
 
"We are interested and we are looking at it. Me and Mick have to establish the economics of it. There is more network interest and general interest in a Lacy fight than a Froch fight because Carl Froch in not known here. He's doing the right thing to build interest in the fight, I hope he keeps talking because the fight needs to have interest."