Froch Dominates Abraham to Win Back WBC World Title Belt

Carl Froch turned in the most dominant performance of his career, recapturing the World Boxing Council (WBC) super middleweight world championship Saturday night with a unanimous decision against an overwhelmed Arthur Abraham in the final Group Stage 3 fight of the Super Six World Boxing Classic at the Hartwall Areena in Helsinki, Finland.

The 33-year-old Froch (27-1, 20 KOs), of Nottingham, England, handed the Armenian-born Abraham (31-2, 25 KOs) of Berlin, Germany, his second consecutive loss. The judges scores were 120-108 twice and 119-109 in favor of Froch, who rebounded from his only career loss back in April to Mikkel Kessler.

With a tournament record of 2-1, Froch earned two points for the win for a total of four and will face Glen Johnson in the Semifinals. Johnson and Abraham are tied with three points but Johnson wins the judges’ scorecard tiebreak to grab the third seed. That leaves Abraham in fourth and a Semifinal date with tournament point leader Andre Ward.

“He’s an old wise fox,” Froch said of the 41-year-old Johnson. “He knows what he’s doing. He’s a great, great fighter. If Glen Johnson is watching I just want to say I look forward to that fight.”

Showtime play-by-play announcer Steve Albert was duly impressed by Froch’s performance. “This has been a stunning display by Froch,” he said, after which analyst Steve Farhood replied. “And this has been a stunningly flat display by Abraham.”

“I knew I was going to be this dominating,” Froch told Farhood and the Showtime viewers after the fight. “There were so many times I wanted to put my punches together and put my shots together but I just listened to my corner and they kept saying stand back and let him come. So that’s what I did.

“There were a few times when it got into a bit of a brawl but I didn’t want that. That would have been too dangerous and silly because Arthur Abraham is a big puncher and a very strong man. He knows what he’s doing. I knew if I executed my game plan it would be an easy night’s work and I proved that tonight. “He landed a few stiff jabs in there. He tried to get a little dirty but the ref did a great job stopping that. I had some great sparring with (ShoBox alum) Edwin Rodriguez. That really helped me.”

Abraham was contrite and short following the bout. “I’m not sure what happened,” he said. “Nothing worked tonight. He was the better man tonight and he won. Everything I meant to do did not work.”