Enzo Calzaghe: "Froch's Performance Pathetic, Very Poor"

[FLY TY]

Pretty bad from Enzo. Why not give Froch credit? Carl had an excellent win.

Maybe he's stirring the pot. Maybe he IS building up to an all-brit mega clash?

b/c it wasn't an excellent win.....

[oA2o]

There's more to winning fights than technical skills, though. There's things that are invisible to the eye, such as heart, will, determination. Is see it like this: Froch is hungry for success and has something to prove. Taylor already achieved what he wanted and has now lost the drive and motivation to keep on winning. He likes the feeling of being a champ, he misses the feeling of being important, but his heart isn't in it. Froch didn't need a mind-boggling array of skills to beat a fighter lacking motivation. It's still a good win.

I'm a die hard Taylor fan (was) and I completely agree with you.

[STEELHEAD]

agree with much of what enzo says.
i won betting on froch but was dissappointed
that he fought such a dumb fight against taylor.
he was just lucky it turned out the way it did.
i had taylor ahead 105-103.
froch could get away with his style against bute but up against the best like kessler or calzaghe froch looses!

[TRAVI$]

Carl Froch has the worst jab in boxing, true story.

[TRAVI$]

I'm a die hard Taylor fan (was) and I completely agree with you.

I'm pretty sure 'die hard' fans stay loyal even in defeat.

[adietheforestfa]

Reminder to Enzo

Maccrenelli

Bradley Price

STFU

[Mugwump]

Enzo is just mad over the taunts Froch has aimed at his son.

Anyone who thinks Froch's performance was "very poor" is either trolling or didn't pay much attention to the fight. Taylor did jump on him during the early rounds - but Jermain Taylor is a very good fighter. Give the guy credit.

That said, from the fourth round on Froch consistently backed Taylor up with two and three punch combinations. Taylor responded with crisp counters that were far more eye-catching. But I found it very difficult to pick the two fighters apart for much of the middle rounds.

Froch has always said the reason he keeps his hand low is to encourage his opponent to throw so he can counter. If you watch the fight it's not often Taylor catches him clean as the initiator of an attack. The problem for Froch was when he decided to air-condition the room, which gave Taylor free reign to counter. I think the low hands are a bit of red-herring. Where Froch needs to improve is in the recovery stage after the punch. He simply doesn't get his gloves back fast enough.

But that's all part of the learning process. Taylor was his first genuinely classy opponent and he'll learn an awful lot from that fight. And you have remember that this was his first appearance on American soil - exposed to a massive new audience - fighting as a belt holder. And he had A LOT staked on that fight. His mouth had wrote a lot of cheques on money he didn't have. If he had lost that fight pretty much everything he had worked for would have been flushed down the toilet. There's little chance any of the other belt holders would be in a rush to fight someone with heavy hands and a granite chin. Which means he would have had a two or three-year runaround trying to win back a belt (think of Witter) making him 33 or 34. Too old. With so much at stake you have to expect the kind of nervousness he exhibited in the early rounds.

As for him only winning because Taylor gassed - bull****. Firstly, Taylor did not look like a fighter struggling to stand up in round 10 when he hit Froch with some sweet combinations and nearly put him down. Where it went wrong for Taylor was near the end of round 11 when Froch caught him with a murderous uppercut. He was shaky going to his stool and he was shaky coming out of it. It's the reason he was tagged and eventually battered senseless by Froch's power hitting in round 12. "Gassing out" had little to do with it.

But even if it did - you still have to congratulate Froch. He trained to fight for twelve rounds and he achieved exactly that. In the great book of boxing history losses aren't suffixed with "but was winning on the scorecards in the twelth when he went down". It's simply - "Lost."

Credit to Froch. He staked everything on his own ability fighting on foreign soil and on his opponent's home turf. Respect.

[Dave Rado]

Very long analysis

Excellent analysis and I agree with most of it - but I strongly disagree with the bit about Taylor not being gassed. He started to slow noticeably in the seventh and slowed more noticeably from the ninth onwards. In the early rounds he either blocked or slipped nearly all of Froch's power punches and was never forced to trade; but they started to land occasionally in the seventh and eighth, and more frequently from the ninth. He looked extremely tired in the tenth - they both did, but Froch has much more stamina than Taylor does and was able to fight better while tired. Taylor isn't much of a fighter anyway, so as soon as it became more of a fight and less of a boxing match, the writing was on the wall.

Taylor was forced to trade in the eleventh because he'd slowed too much to keep Froch off any more. He should have got on his bike once he started to tire, and to tie Froch up, like De La Hoya in the late rounds against Trinidad; but he didn't.

[Dan...]

Enzo is a total joke, the man has no class.

I have respect for Joe, but I hate that tool.

[Dan...]

I'm a die hard Taylor fan (was) and I completely agree with you.

LOL at "die hard" followed by was in brackets. ROFL, oh yeah son, you die hard.