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Tonight Carl “The Cobra” Froch faces his toughest test as a pro when he steps into the ring at the legendary York Hall in Bethnal Green to defend his British and Commonwealth Super Middleweight titles against rival Irish southpaw Brian Magee on a Maloney Promotion. The York Hall has hosted some cracking domestic battles recently with Lenny Daws defeating Nigel Wright on points and Lee Meager ruthlessly stopping Dave Stewart in 6 rounds, but Froch vs. Magee has the potential to top the lot.
Froch , 28, nicknamed the “Cobra”, is undefeated in 18 fights with 14 knockouts and will start the favourite against the former IBO Champion from Belfast. But in truth, due to the Froch’s poor showings against Ruben Groenewald and Dale Westerman in defence of his Commonwealth crown, this fight is now in the balance.
There is no doubt that Froch has the better pedigree. Starting out his career on the BBC, he has built a strong following around the area of his hometown, Nottingham, and his flashy, low hands style and trash talking of opponents makes people take interest in him, whether it’s good or bad.
Most of the time however, Froch has been as good as his word. In just his tenth pro fight, he picked up the English Super Middleweight crown by stopping fellow undefeated fighter Alan Page in the seventh round. Rather than defend that title, Froch stepped up in class and outpointed tough Ghanaian Charles Adamu to capture the Commonwealth crown.
In a close fight, Froch was struggling to be effective against the stocky Adamu but a peach of a right hand floored the African and consequently turned the fight in Froch’s favour. The champion made a successful first defence of his crown by stopping a naturally bigger Canadian, Mark Woolnough, in 11 rounds before ruthlessly demolishing Damon Hague inside a single round for the British title.
Next up came his big chance to shine, when he made his American debut at the Avalon in Hollywood, California against Henry Porras who had previously shared a ring with Otis Grant and WBA Super Middleweight king Mikkel Kessler. Froch did an impressive job, stopping Porras in round 8, a frame quicker than Kessler had managed.
His last impressive performance however was to be his following fight back at home in Nottingham, against awkward but highly skillful Matthew Barney in a grudge match. Barney in his last fight had boxed European Light Heavyweight champion Thomas Ulrich’s head off in Germany but hardly surprisingly, failed to get the verdict. For Froch to dominate Barney for the majority of their fight, and really turn it on down the stretch, showed that he could back up his boasts.
But Barney did have his successes and tagged a defenceless Froch several times, which led people to question his defence. While Barney may have only started the criticism of Froch’s style, his following two opponents, Ruben Groenewald and Dale Westerman, really caused concern and exposed Froch’s weak defence even more. Westerman particularly really gave Froch terrible problems early on before eventually tiring and being stopped in the ninth.
Those flaws are what make the fight very interesting. Magee, at 30 years of age, has the greater experience with a record of 25-2 with 18 knockouts.
He captured the IBO title in just his fourteenth fight, with a one round blow out of Ramon Britez, back in 2001. Magee made an impressive 7 defences of the crown, including solid wins against Mpush Makembi, Miguel Jimenez, Andre Thysse and a career best performance when he dismantled world class Frenchman Hacine Cherifi inside 8 rounds.
After the Cherifi display, things started to go wrong for the Irishman. In his next fight against Jerry Elliott, he was floored heavily by a right hand in the very first round and the questions marks surrounding his chin were already being asked. However, Magee collected himself and boxed Elliott for the rest of the fight to retain his title on points.
But Magee was to become unstuck just two months later when he lost his crown against former WBC Super Middleweight champion Robin Reid in a dire fight which failed miserably to live up to the hype. Magee was floored four times by Reid and at times looked ready for the taking.
It was those knockdowns that consequently cost him the fight as Magee was by far the better technician and despite being floored four times, lost only by 4, 3 and 1 point on the judges scorecards. But the question marks about his glass jaw had been confirmed.
Credit to Magee though, as a year later he traveled to Germany to challenge Vitali Tsypko for the European championship. Magee, despite not looking his very best, seemed to have won the contest over 12 fairly uninspiring rounds. But Tsypko won a split decision and it was another setback for the Irishman, although the fact that one judge had Magee winning in Germany tells the public who really won. Since then Magee has regrouped with a couple second round stoppage wins against modest opposition in his home country.
This fight will be won by whoever can impose their style the better. Froch has the better punch power but has a really terrible defence whereas Magee is the much better boxer, more precise, but has the weaker chin. The question is whether Magee can keep away from Froch’s power punches while outboxing him with his better jabbing for 12 rounds. It seems a tough ask, but it has been done in the past. But on this occasion and in this fight at some point you feel Froch is going to catchup with the Irishman at and rescue the fight from a possible points defeat.
