Podcasts
He may be retired, and there might be little boxing news to speak of, but Carl Froch is still out here making headlines and infuriating people on the internet. The former super-middleweight king has his own podcast, Froch on Fighting, and in the latest episode he gave his side of the story as to why a mooted clash with Gennady Golovkin never happened.
โWe were in talks with his manager. They were trying to get me down to 166lbs,โ he said. โThat donโt sound like much weight, 2lbs below the 12 stone [super-middleweight] limit. I was a machine at 12 stone.
โI could not have lost another 2lbs and performed. They were just trying to drag me down that bit further.โ
Froch – as only he can – also gave his view on how a fight with Golovkin wouldโve gone.
โIn my opinion Iโd beat him up because Iโm too big and too strong for him. I might be wrong, weโll never know, but I would back myself to beat him,โ he said.
โI couldโve got my nose broke, I couldโve got my eye cut and been blinded in one eye, I couldโve even got ironed out.
โI never think Iโd be knocked out because Iโve been hit with some big, big shots in my career and Iโve felt them, but they never bothered me that much. Iโve never been flattened like Amir Khan, have I?โ
My favourite part of this segment of his show was Froch describing the time he shook Golovkinโs hand as being โlike shaking the hand of a wet lettuce.โ Froch undoubtedly believes heโd have beaten Golovkin, but heโs also a provocateur with a very dry sense of humour, and some of what he says is done so with his tongue firmly in his cheek. Regardless, this is the sort of content we need in such trying times; Carl Froch calling Gennady Golovkin a wet lettuce.
Websites
Though itโs becoming increasingly hard to tell what the future holds for boxing, it looks as though weโre going to get a third fight between Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin. The Athletic first reported the news that a trilogy fight has allegedly been signed, providing the pair win in interm fights with Billy Joe Saunders and Kamil Szeremeta respectively.
Interestingly, ESPN reported that Caneloโs agreement to fight Saunders came with the stipulation that he must also sign to fight Golovkin after, suggesting DAZN are forcing the issue to get a serious return on their $365 million investment into the Mexican star.
According to ESPN, Canelo-Golovkin 3 was initially slated for September of this year, but the coronavirus pandemic obviously throws that into doubt. While their rivalry has lost some of its appeal, itโs still a great fight – though Caneloโs hurdle to get there is significantly higher than Golovkinโs.
By all accounts the deal was a nightmare to get done, but if broadcast execs can continue to throw their weight around to get the top fights made, we could see some positive growth.
Floyd Mayweatherโs rumoured return to the ring will not take place this year, according to TMZ. After both Josie Harris – Floydโs ex-partner and mother to three of his children – and his uncle Roger passed away in the space of a week, Mayweather is apparently putting the brakes on any fighting plans.
That is, obviously, completely understandable, though Iโd still rather see Mayweather stick to retirement and waltz into the Hall of Fame.
Two fighters have come out and announced their next fight will be postponed due to the coronavirus, though one appears to have jumped the gun. Speaking to BTV in his native Bulgaria, Kubrat Pulev insisted his June 20 meeting with unified heavyweight champ Anthony Joshua will be postponed by at least a few months, however his manager then had to clear things up by telling Boxing Scene that scenario is still just a possibility, and that the June 20 date remains in place.
Meanwhile, Teofimo Lopez told the same site that his mooted fight with Vasyl Lomachenko will not take place on May 30 as originally intended. The fight still hasnโt been formally announced, though seems a sure bet for some point this year, provided shows can take place again. Itโs a fascinating fight, and one we hopefully see sooner rather than later.
Broadcasts
Thereโs obviously no live boxing going on at the moment, nor for the foreseeable future, so to get our fix we fans are having to go back and watch past fights in order to escape the reality of society as we know it crumbling around us.
While thereโs plenty of this content on YouTube and broadcastersโ on demand services, one place not everyone will know about is KOTV. Starting out in 2001, KOTV featured on terrestrial television, first on ITV2 before moving to Channel 4, where it remained in a weekly slot for 15 years.
This partnership ended in 2018 and so KOTV has now moved online – and is still free. KOTV produce a weekly magazine show, โKOTV Boxing Weeklyโ, in which they recap all the latest news and fights in the sport. Theyโve also got KOTV Classics, which features historic fights from their vast archive, and theyโre now looking to broadcast smaller shows in the UK, either live or on delay.
Whatever the case, thereโs a trove of free boxing content available for fans at kotvboxing.tv. The outfit has decades of experience in the game, plus if KOTV can provide a platform for smaller shows once the sport is up and running again, thatโs yet another avenue for fans to get access to fights that otherwise wouldnโt be seen outside the venues theyโre in. With other small hall shows now being streamed on YouTube at times, we could be entering a period of unprecedented availability when it comes to live boxing in the UK.