{"id":17373,"date":"2011-12-02T00:00:24","date_gmt":"2011-12-02T05:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=17373"},"modified":"2011-12-01T21:03:42","modified_gmt":"2011-12-02T02:03:42","slug":"carl-froch-vs-andre-ward-super-6-middleweight-tournament-final%e2%80%a6finally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=17373","title":{"rendered":"Carl Froch Vs Andre Ward: Super 6 Middleweight Tournament Final\u2026Finally"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Gina L. Caliboso<\/strong><\/p>\n

On December 17th, finally, fight fans, finally! There will be an ending final to the Super 6 Middleweight tournament that had started back in 2009. It was a bold experiment, a very bold experiment, to see if a round robin tournament would work for boxing. Back in 2009, boxing had experienced a sense of the doldrums without anyone really getting matched up in any solid fights. It\u2019s been a long two years. It\u2019s been like a soap opera \u2013 injuries, a DQ, and replacement fighters. It all started to unravel. Now, the two fighters, Andre \u201cS.O.G.\u201d Ward, 24-0, 13 KO\u2019s, and Carl \u201cCobra\u201d Froch, 28-1, 20 KO\u2019s, of the United Kingdom will face off. And yes, I am actually looking forward to this bout.<\/p>\n

At stake, both Ward and Froch will be fighting for the WBC Super Middleweight and WBA Super World Super Middleweight titles. Currently, Canadian champ Lucian Bute, 30-0, 24 KO\u2019s is undefeated and holds the IBF Super Middleweight title. It\u2019s a very strong possibility that Bute should face the winner of the Ward vs. Froch final. But let\u2019s consider the bout between Ward and Froch first.<\/p>\n

To refresh our boxing memories to the start of the Super 6 tournament, in Group Stage One, Ward defeated Mikkel \u201cViking Warrior\u201d Kessler, with an 11th round TD and earned the WBA Super World Middleweight title. He\u2019s held on to the title ever since. Stage One was also well remembered for it\u2019s first bit of drama when King Arthur Abraham defeated Jermain \u201cBad Intentions\u201d Taylor, in the closing seconds of the 12th round.<\/p>\n

In Group Stage Two, Ward faced Allan \u201cGhost Dog\u201d Green, who replaced Taylor, with a 12 round unanimous decision. It was an expected that Green might put up more of a fight or provide some competition, but it wasn\u2019t the case. Ward easily defeated Green and successfully defended his WBA title.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Kessler had to pull out due to injury as well as Andre \u201cMatrix\u201d Dirrell. Ward and Dirrell were scheduled to face one another, but Ward earned a forfeit win when Dirrell pulled out in their fight due to suffering neurological problems. You remember this bit of drama or tragedy perhaps. While fighting Abraham, Dirrell was down on the canvas when Abraham punched him. Abraham got the DQ and Dirrell earned the win, but he hasn\u2019t fought in about a year. Finally, yes, the semifinal stage, Ward faced Abraham and earned the victory in a 12 round unanimous decision. Whew, that\u2019s Ward\u2019s journey to the final. Let\u2019s also remember that Ward had suffered a cut while sparring a few months back and THIS final had to be delayed by 2 months. But so far, all is quiet and set for December 17th.<\/p>\n

We haven\u2019t even talked about Froch\u2019s journey to the final yet. So hang on there and let me catch you up.<\/p>\n

In Group Stage One, Froch faced Andre \u201cThe Matrix\u201d Dirrell. Over 12 rounds, Froch eventually earned a split decision win and retained his WBC Super Middleweight title. It was a close bout with questionable scoring. Dirrell had been deducted a point because the referee judged that Dirrell had been \u2018pulling\u2019 Froch towards him. Although, I\u2019d argue that Froch\u2019s particular fighting style with his hands down most of the time merits that he does the same thing, but he didn\u2019t get called on it. In Group Stage Two, Froch faced Kessler.<\/p>\n

Coming back from his loss against Ward where Kessler suffered some cuts above his eyes, Kessler fought a very technical fight against Froch and it paid off. Kessler takes the WBC title from Froch in a 12 round unanimous decision. But Kessler didn\u2019t keep the title for very long nor did he stay in the tournament. Kessler had to pull out due to an injury and replaced by Glen \u201cGentleman\u201d Johnson. However, Froch progressed in the tournament. In Group Stage 3, Froch went up against Abraham to earn a 12 round unanimous decision, getting back the vacated WBC Super Middleweight title. In the semifinal round, Froch faced Johnson and earned a 12 round majority decision.<\/p>\n

It sounds like a long 2 years. But here the tournament finale finally ends and I didn\u2019t predict that Froch would be in the final. From the outset, I saw that Ward had the stuff that makes champions. He just hasn\u2019t received the notoriety that he rightly deserves. He\u2019s an incredible southpaw fighter with a great jab and puts together great power combos. In this tournament, he hasn\u2019t ever been in trouble. I wished he could have fought against Dirrell because that would have really put his skills to test. Ward is a much stronger fighter than Froch and he\u2019s shown he gets better as the fight goes into the later rounds.<\/p>\n

Carl \u201cCobra\u201d Froch will have to be more technical and when he faces Ward, he can\u2019t count on the decision to go his way. As his tournament record shows, he\u2019s managed 3 wins, doing just enough to win the decision. When he\u2019s exchanging, especially on the inside, he\u2019s good. Froch will have to put some combinations together and work inside against Ward.<\/p>\n

The super middleweight division is one of the more competitively packed divisions. Lucian Bute is currently ranked #1, Ward ranked #2, and Froch ranked #3. While Bute remains undefeated and recently defeated Johnson, Bute\u2019s best competition will be to fight Ward. Up to now, Bute hasn\u2019t faced any real challenges because the super middleweights were tied up in the tournament. But now, it will be up to Bute to get the fight against Ward.<\/p>\n

So finally, December 17th marks the finale of a boxing experiment of trial and error, so goes the beginning of possibility for the super middleweight division. Let\u2019s keep our fingers crossed and we\u2019ll talk Ward versus Bute \u2013 eventually.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Gina L. Caliboso On December 17th, finally, fight fans, finally! There will be an ending final to the Super 6 Middleweight tournament that had started back in 2009. It was a bold experiment, a very bold experiment, to see if a round robin tournament would work for boxing. Back in 2009, boxing had experienced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[57,143],"class_list":["post-17373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boxing-news","tag-andre-ward","tag-carl-froch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17373"}],"version-history":[{"count":-3,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}