Carl Froch can pinpoint the exact moment he knew his career was over.
The 46 year old represents a refreshingly content figure in retirement, because of both the financial security he earned and the fact that one of the finest of any British fighters’ careers was admired to the extent that he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
He fought for the last time in 2014, when he stopped his greatest rival George Groves in their rematch at Wembley Stadium, but he later also considered a third fight with Mikkel Kessler, and went as far as training for a potential date with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in Las Vegas.
It was in June 2023 when Froch was inducted into the Hall of Fame, and his success – in the context of British boxing – in the glamorous super middleweight division meant that he was already widely regarded as one of Britain’s finest fighters.
The respect with which he is regarded owes so much to the fact he retired after so significant a victory and close to his peak and therefore with his health intact, instead of – as he recognizes he may later have risked – fighting on for too long.
“I was training, potentially for a fight, and I never quit anything,” he said as the guest of honour at the Boxing Writers’ Club. “Never stopped bag work; never went on a run and didn’t finish a run. If I stop on a run, I’ve quit on the fight, and that means I can quit – and I’m not a quitter.
“Even if I’ve got a stitch and I’m into the fourth mile and I’m on the watch and doing six minutes a mile – I’ve got to finish strong. Otherwise in my head I’m not meeting the target; I’m not hitting the goals I want to hit. Dreams are just dreams without goals, so you have to make goals.
“When I was training for the potential Chavez Jr. fight – a six-miler; 36 minutes is my best time for that – halfway around the run thinking about Chavez Jr., I got a bit of a stitch and my Achilles tendon was killing me; my knee was sore. There was a few aches and pains, and I’m running up this hill thinking, ‘Why am I doing this? I’ve done what I needed to do. I beat Groves at Wembley in a rematch. I’m 37.’ I stopped running.
“I’m walking, and it was the best walk ever. I’m walking home, and I’ve got a tear in me eye and I’m feeling emotional; it was a 25-minute walk; it would have been a 10-minute run. I got home, and [wife] Rachael’s like, ‘Where have you been? What’s gone off? What’s up with you?’. She could see it in my face.
“I just said to her – I’m getting a bit choked up now; I feel a bit silly; I can feel the emotion now – ‘It’s over; it’s done; I’m finished; I’m not fighting anymore’. She got hold of me, give me a cuddle, and said, ‘I’m so glad – I’m so happy for you’. I said, ‘I’ve got to speak to [my trainer] Rob McCracken – I’ve got to give him a ring’. She was really happy.
“That’s when I knew it was over, ‘cause I’d stopped the run; quit on the run, so I’d quit boxing. I’d finished. ‘I’m not going to box anymore.’ I felt like a weight had been lifted. ‘I’ve done that – lovely.’ ‘Let’s do this – let’s go on holiday.’”
Froch was then asked if anyone ever seriously attempted him to return to fighting, and he responded: “Eddie Hearn, yeah – you know what he’s like. He loves a pound note.
“But no, I just said… Once I’d finished – once I’d retired – I knew I’d done it all.”