Froch & Groves - where now?

Groves first:

He is a free agent now, and after a performance that has won him legions of new fans and sympathisers. His stock is high. If he re-signs with Hearn, he can try and leverage a Froch rematch as part of the deal. Either that or a crack at Stieglitz so he can grab a strap. Groves has arrived in a way, and he should be able to get a strap if he goes the right route. Froch rematch or Stiegbum for me.

Froch:

He looked poor last night. Groves exposed his weaknesses very well in the early part of the fight, and obviously the stoppage was premature. That said, he was the victor.

Personally, I think this warrants a rematch. Hearn will know that Froch's days are numbered and will want to invest in Groves more, too.

So how about this:

Degale is unhappy with Mick and desperate for a title shot. Hearn could sign him and give him a shot v Froch in May for a fraction of what he paid Groves. Stick Groves v Stieglitz on the undercard and have the winners face off. Stieglitz would have to be well paid to travel, but I have no doubt Groves dusts him.

Then, fall time next year have the rematch between Froch and Groves in a unified bout. Either that or Groves v Degale.

I am just thinking of the top of my head at what Hearn might do with them next. I see Froch as just about spent, no more than 2 fights left in an excellent career where he achieved a great deal.

Groves Vs Stieglitz could happen and certainly is winnable, as you say Groves is a free agent so anything could happen, Matchroom deal could make sense wouldn't surprise me if someone like Sauerland throw a offer on the table as a shock move but as a say wouldn't surprise me if Hearn signed him up.

Personally can't see the Froch rematch something tells me that Carl, his trainer don't fancy it. As for Froch Vs Degale zero money in that fight not even PPV and to put another world title bout such as Groves Vs Stieglitz on the undercard i can't see that happening either money wise and Groves deserves to be the main event after last night.

Who knows what will happen will Carl go after Ward and call it a day or will Carl retire as it stands now think they are too many ifs, buts and maybes with what fight could happen next.

Personally if the Froch fight didn't happen for Groves maybe Stieglitz then Bika could be a 2 big fights down the line. Degale brings nothing to the table right now for Groves and Froch.

Hearn wont do Froch on anything less than ppv. There is too much money in a Froch v Groves rematch for it not to be a priority. I cant see Andre Ward be willing to come to the UK. He doesnt travel well at the best of times so no chance when he sees what Hearn promotions are like. The only stumbling block to a rematch I could see is Groves promotional situation. He could wind up owing Booth a ton of money for doing nothing and Hearn might not be willing to set Groves up as his new poster boy unless Groves signs himself over to him completely. If Groves has to pay out to both Booth and Hearn then he wouldnt be making much for fighting. If Booth could be paid off and disappear then Hearn might fancy a new star and we might see Howard Foster jumping in to save Froch in a rematch.

Froch has fought a host of top draw opponents in an incredibly active few years so for me I think he needs to have a good 7-8 months recuperation period to heal and recharge the batteries before returning for a swansong rematch with Groves before retiring.

The rematch would be a great way to bow out, it would pay well and it is a fight he can win. A Ward rematch is pointless as it would be another Ward win.

With Groves, a Froch rematch makes sense as he knows its a fight he could win and a win would catapult his career. Id expect Ward to come to the table within 12 months if he did beat Froch though if he doesnt move up.

I think Froch will take abit of time out now though so Stieglitz is another good option if he wants to keep busy with a very testing opponent but an opponent he can beat to get a strap.

Good times ahead for Groves i think. Has all the tools to go far!. Carls time is sadly coming to an end but he has already booked his place in history.

If they can get Ward over to the UK it is certainly a fight Froch could win on paper at least. He'd need the same judges as last night and would just need to win 4 rounds to be awarded the victory.

Ward won't come with a million miles of a UK ring after seeing that shambles last night. Groves only hope of victory was a KO. He wasn't going to win any other way. With Ward not being a big hitter it makes no sense for him.

Haito wrote:Froch has fought a host of top draw opponents in an incredibly active few years so for me I think he needs to have a good 7-8 months recuperation period to heal and recharge the batteries before returning for a swansong rematch with Groves before retiring.

The rematch would be a great way to bow out, it would pay well and it is a fight he can win. A Ward rematch is pointless as it would be another Ward win.

With Groves, a Froch rematch makes sense as he knows its a fight he could win and a win would catapult his career. Id expect Ward to come to the table within 12 months if he did beat Froch though if he doesnt move up.

I think Froch will take abit of time out now though so Stieglitz is another good option if he wants to keep busy with a very testing opponent but an opponent he can beat to get a strap.

Good times ahead for Groves i think. Has all the tools to go far!. Carls time is sadly coming to an end but he has already booked his place in history.

Good post Haito. I agree Froch has seen better days due to all the hard fights he had. I will go one further than you and suggest Froch might retire now. I think he has suffered brain damage, I really believe this.

Whatever we say about the stoppage, Froch has showed his superb heart and warrior style yet again. He pulled it out from the brink and that possibly would have been the outcome anyway, who knows?

I have heard some other interview from Froch on IFilmTV and the BBC website and he has been a lot more respectful than he was for the interview immediately after the fight.

One of the best fights this year for sure!

I think Froch should try and finally become the unified champion at Supermiddleweight. Or even go to Vegas and fight the linear champion at Light Heavyweight...

Brilliant fight, looked like a brilliant atmosphere. Froch should retire I think. His comeback to stop Groves will be his last moment of greatness in my opinion, it's time to think about his health. Groves showed some lovely skills, he's a lot better than I thought he was. I think signing to Hearn and pursuing Stieglitz would be his best option from a matchmaking point of view.

Haito wrote:Froch has fought a host of top draw opponents in an incredibly active few years so for me I think he needs to have a good 7-8 months recuperation period to heal and recharge the batteries before returning for a swansong rematch with Groves before retiring.

Problem is Froch is 36 so a 7/8 month lay off would spell the end of his career because at his age no way he could come back from that sort of lay off

sittingringside wrote:Brilliant fight, looked like a brilliant atmosphere. Froch should retire I think. His comeback to stop Groves will be his last moment of greatness in my opinion, it's time to think about his health. Groves showed some lovely skills, he's a lot better than I thought he was. I think signing to Hearn and pursuing Stieglitz would be his best option from a matchmaking point of view.

Would be a horrible way to end his career. A fight he was losing to a 19 fight novice and only won because of a very controversial stoppage.

sittingringside wrote:Brilliant fight, looked like a brilliant atmosphere. Froch should retire I think. His comeback to stop Groves will be his last moment of greatness in my opinion, it's time to think about his health. Groves showed some lovely skills, he's a lot better than I thought he was. I think signing to Hearn and pursuing Stieglitz would be his best option from a matchmaking point of view.

I think Froch is on the downward spiral, in beating Bute and Kessler he achieved exactly what he wanted to, proving he was the best of the rest and gaining revenge. Going into the fight I couldn't see it being a defining fight for Froch but none the rematch is to an extent, it was superb turnaround and for all his failings his resolve and never say die attitude against the very best is staggering. As far as british fighters go, I can't think of anyone in history who can match his heart.

I'd be surprised if anyone other than Hearn takes control of Groves for the time being. Although Groves has repeatedly said he'll not allow himself to be added to the list of boxers who have been exploited and not had as much say on their career as they'd like, he must know that right now Hearn and Matchroom are the only organisation in the UK who can put on the kind of shows (in terms of venue, crowd size, media coverage etc) that he was on last night, and after shaking up the boxing scene and announcing himself as a serious, serious force at 168 (surprising a lot of people in doing so, as well), that must be what he's aiming for now.

The rematch against Froch is obviously what he'd love (which we'll get to in a moment) and if he sticks with Hearn there's all the more chance of making it happen. Likewise, regardless of what you think about Hearn as a character, he's shown that if you're anywhere near a top ten place in your division, he'll get you some good fights and opportunities to fight for world titles (even if they are only 'regular' ones!). Quigg, Barker, Brook (injuries aside), Bellew etc can testify to that.

I think we're bound to see Groves in there with one of the 168 lb champions outside of Ward (just not enough pull for that one right now) within the next twelve months.

As for Froch, I really don't know. He said last night that retirement isn't even entering his head, and then kind of hedged his bets a little, saying that he'll have to make sure he's still enjoying training and target-setting in the coming weeks / months. He's got a bit of a dilemma, because I feel sure that Froch simply didn't anticipate struggling so badly in this fight, and was convinced that he'd still be in a position to try and negotiate a lucrative Ward rematch, maybe even in the UK, come this evening.

As it is, thoughts of Ward are now pretty far away, and if Froch does box on, can he really go any other route than take a Groves rematch? In one sense, I think he'll want it, as it would be a bit of an affront to his warrior pride (sorry Dave!) if he looked elsewhere given the controversy. Likewise, he was so disdainful of the challenge Groves posed in the build up to the fight that his pride will surely be hurting in some degree, albeit the fact that he won by hook or crook might cancel that out.

If that's the angel on one shoulder, the devil on the other came out last night when he told iFilm London, "Why do I need to fight someone again who I've just knocked out and beaten?" As much as his pride and heart will be telling him to take a rematch, I think the above quote shows that his brain (as well as his achy-breaky joints and the like) may well be telling him to try and steer clear of Groves, as he now realises just how susceptible he is to the speed and all-round agility he brings to the table.

Froch has always been supremely confident and has usually dealt with disappointment very well. Look at how he rebounded from the Kessler and Ward defeats, for instance. But they were fights that, at the time, he was expected to lose in many cases, being the betting underdog in each. Now he's been taken to the brink by another big underdog with no previous world title experience, and won in a very unconvincing and unsatisfactory manner.

Even for someone as confident and self-assured as Froch, this must make it hard for him to ignore the fact that, while Groves is entering his athletic peak years, he on the other hand is in a constant struggle to hold off father time, a struggle which generally only gets more and more difficult - particularly when you fight with a style like Froch's.

Emotions for both men will still be running high right now, but I suspect we'll see them squaring off again and, whether he wins or loses, it'll be Froch's last fight.

Perfect assessment, Chris. In my view, Groves is the only, and last, game in town for Froch. Carl can't realistically beat Ward, DeGale is an irrelevance and there aren't many of the other contenders at 168 who Froch hasn't either already dealt with or who bring much in the way of money or meaning to the table.

Even if Froch were 30 and in the prime of his fighting life, an immediate (as in Froch's next fight, in whatever month of 2014) rematch with Groves should have been his next assignment, both to remedy the injustice of the ending and, far from least importantly, to re-run what was, after all the smoke has cleared, a wonderful fight. As it stands, that must surely be the case to an even greater degree.

After that, I'd like to see Froch retire, win or lose. He may choose that option in preference to fighting anyone (unlikely, I agree), in which case he would deserve the support of everyone for his decision. He owes the sport and its fans nothing, having given his all over a serious of punishing fights at the highest level that have been matched by only a select handful of British fighters. Froch's position as an all-time British great is beyond question, whatever comes next.

The world is George's oyster, by contrast. If Froch fights on, then I hope that Groves's next contest will be a deserved rematch. If Froch is to retire, then I don't see a fighter at 168, Ward aside, that Groves can't be very confident about facing. Ward is another matter, of course - it would be a tough ask for George at any stage - but surely he would need a couple more years of campaigning at the highest level and gaining that priceless bit of extra experience, the lack of which might just have cost him slightly the other night, before he is ready for a supreme all-round operator like SOG.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/boxing/article-2512697/Howard-Foster-likes-comment-predicting-ninth-round-win-Carl-Froch-George-Groves.html#comments

Well said Chris. Can't believe people are calling for Ward to give a rematch to froch in the uk after this.

I still think degale is the superior talent to groves but Groves has learned and improved by stepping out of his comfort zone whereas degale just sits back on the ropes instead of making those glimpses of excellence the norm. Just goes to show how talent without application can only get you so far.

The future is bright for Groves and i'm pleased we've got another talent to look forward to.

Ward would seriously damage Froch in a second encounter.

Froch would have a good shout of beating Ward in the UK. Just get the same crew as in the last Burns or Groves fight and Ward needs a KO to win.

The first fight Froch got soundly beat by Ward but the judges actually only had him winning by a round. That was in the U.S. Put that same fight in the UK and you have a homecooked match pretty easily. As long as Froch can manage to not get knocked out and make a few of rounds look like they might be capable of being considered competitive then you cant rule it out. Ward would be mad to come here and I dont think Hearn would dream of making the match in the UK without some insurance like Howard Foster.

You couldnt rule someone like Degale out. Before the Groves fight got made not many would have even thought it would be close. Then it got made, the hype and build up kicked in and people started looking at more closely. With Groves doing so well against Froch people might not be as dismissive of Degale now. He only lost a close fight to Groves. Hearn could smell pay per view in Degale. Another Battle of Britain. The return of the Benn-Eubank-Watson days etc. There is money to be made here for Hearn with the British public who love that sort of thing.

ShahenshahG wrote:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/boxing/article-2512697/Howard-Foster-likes-comment-predicting-ninth-round-win-Carl-Froch-George-Groves.html#comments

Well said Chris. Can't believe people are calling for Ward to give a rematch to froch in the uk after this.

I still think degale is the superior talent to groves but Groves has learned and improved by stepping out of his comfort zone whereas degale just sits back on the ropes instead of making those glimpses of excellence the norm. Just goes to show how talent without application can only get you so far.

The future is bright for Groves and i'm pleased we've got another talent to look forward to.

Groves has demonstrated that his power transfers up to world class level. DeGale is a pitter patter slapper.

Grove also has very fast hands. I didn't give him credit for being so quick. DeGale is a little bit slicker but Groves power punching, speed and strength trump that for me.

Sod all this Degale nonsense, Groves is now better than him in every department. Degale is stuck with his moron trainer for too long and hasn't developed at all.

Always been a Dan of George, can't wait to see him fighting again.