Carl Froch v Glen Johnson

At the start of a bumper couple of months for British boxing, it is the country’s forgotten fighter who will finally aim to emerge as one of country’s best.

Carl ‘The Cobra’ Froch has never broken into the spotlight that shines on his contemporaries such as David Haye and Amir Khan. Competing in the vibrant super-middleweight division, where Britain has always been bristling with talent, Froch struggled to break out of Joe Calzaghe’s considerable shadow at the start of his career, and even since the Welshman retired Froch has arguably been overtaken in the exposure stakes by youngsters George Groves and James DeGale.

This is hugely unfair on a man whose desire to fight the best is often missing from his sport’s other top practitioners. Carl Froch loves a good tear up, and his last five fights have all been legitimate contenders for fight of the year. World-class operators like Andre Dirrell, Jean Pascal and Arthur Abraham have all been left in The Cobra’s wake, with his sole defeat coming at the hands of Dane Mikkel Kessler in a decision that stank of home-town favouritism.

His high-calibre of opponent is in part due to his participation in the revolutionary ‘Super Six’ tournament, which two years ago set out to unify the WBC and WBA title belts and decide once and for all who was the world’s best super-middleweight. While the tournament hasn’t quite lived up to its initial billing, with injuries and withdrawals plaguing it since day one, it has certainly allowed Froch to gain absolute respect in boxing circles on the back of his repeatedly gutsy performances.

He has defended, lost and regained the prestigious WBC world title during the ‘Super Six’, and there is an argument that he is a more deserving world champion than the four other British boxers currently wearing gold around their waist, including the superstars of Khan and Haye.

The Nottingham-born fighter faces another stern test of his world champion status this coming Saturday against 42-year-old Glen ‘The Road Warrior’ Johnson. Despite his advancing years, and the fact he’s lost 14 of 67 contests, Johnson’s bare statistics don’t tell the full story behind him.

Over an 18-year career Johnson has, similarly to Froch, only stepped in with the best and managed held his own with the likes of Antonio Tarver, Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr. It is only Hopkins who has ever been able to stop Johnson, and while the Jamaican may not be as slick as some of Froch’s previous victims, he can certainly match The Cobra in terms of old-fashioned fighting spirit and toughness.

It promises to be brutal. Neither man likes to take a backward step, and the notoriously slow Froch may have the edge in speed on his opponent for the first time in three years. This advantage could provide the foundation for Froch to produce a pure boxing performance similar to that he produced against Arthur Abraham in his last fight, which left the notoriously tough Abraham as a mere spectator to Froch’s pugilistic masterclass.

Yet Froch by nature is a gun-slinger. He holds his hands low, marches up to the man in the opposite corner and forces them to fight. It is this macho attitude that carried him through against the technically superior Jermaine Taylor and Andre Dirrell, yet it would be naive to adopt these tactics against a seasoned and battle-hardened competitor like Glen Johnson.

Froch isn’t stupid though. He and his trainer Robert McCracken have always got their game-plan right in recent years, and will have undoubtedly seen the damage Johnson caused to Roy Jones Jr. when he landed his right hand flush on Jones’ chin. So expect the fighting Froch to become a boxer for the duration of Saturday night’s action, moving away and jabbing at the naturally aggressive but cumbersome Johnson. If Froch can execute this plan, it could be his easiest night’s work for a while.

The carrot dangling in front of the victor is particularly appealing. Saturday’s fight is doubling up as a semi-final of the ‘Super Six’, with the winner advancing through to the tournament’s final against pound-for-pound contender Andre Ward, who has yet to taste defeat in his fledgling professional career and is universally recognised as the best super-middleweight in the world.

Carl Froch will have something to say about that though. Having craved recognition for over a decade, Froch has one final hurdle to clear before a potential super-fight with Ward that would cement his place in British boxing history. Yet this hurdle is a tough one, and if Froch doesn’t stick to his game-plan and tries to go to war with Glen Johnson, then the Brit may have to go without this recognition for a little while longer.