Froch vs Johnson: Thoughts

You could, but you know as well as I do that with a sequence of close rounds, no judge is going to pick the same guy each time. One round either way is effectively a 2 point swing.

Let's not try to put it across that Froch simply moved his hands more and won on activity alone.

Johnson was nailed to the body and even in the 7th and 8th he shipped clean shots. Johnson rarely landed a clean heavy shot without being forced to take something in return. He was blowing by the 4th and that wasn't caused alone by his own activity. Froch hit him cleanly throughout. It was either the 11th or 12th that Froch landed a peachy uppercut.

Froch fights dumb and smart at the same time. Dumb because he gets hit and hurt too easily, and smart because he knows exactly what to do when he gets hurt. Fighters have had him hurt and rarely been able to get off a telling couple of blows more. Froch tucks up and fires back immediately, often in bunches, which takes initiative away from his opponent and makes it hard for the judges to decide either way.

To beat him, Ward is going to have to fight smart himself.

 

:scratcher:

He beat him clearly but.....I'm not sure he "beat the shit" out of him.

 

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:: :atu: Tarver.."Froch asked me how I beat Johnson" :laughing:

 

I want to see Froch vs Bute.

 

Come off it Steve.

Read back in the thread and you'll see I gave Glen the first 3 rounds, and at that point, I honestly thought he would win the fight.

But when Frock got into the fight he was winning the rounds.

It was close and competitive all the way, but ultimately Frock won at least 7-5.

Put it this way, even Glen himself knew he'd lost the fight, and admitted loading up on single punches, and that Frock was landing more and countering him etc.

 

Pretty much. Glen basically admitted to being "Greedy" and allowing Froch too many chances to get his shots off.

Johnson seemed to be outjabbing Froch at times but the punchstats say Froch actually got off more jabs.

 

I had it 7-5 Froch too. Which means I think a draw is a more realistic score than 9-3 Froch, ya feel meh?

 

Yeah 9-3 is clearly not on.

Tarver was spot on in that even the rounds Johnson had success in, even the 8th, were still hard to score rounds.

Right now, I would say that Johnson won the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 7th and 8th. I think thats fair.

 

Yep, totally fair. He also landed the best punches by far in a couple of other rounds, but I can def/ see why you wouldn't score them for Glen.

I find more and more these days I score rounds the way I think the judges are going to score them.

 

I was really pulling for Johnson but couldn't find more than 4 rounds to give him clearly.

I can live with the 116-112 as it was the closest to my scorecard. I had 2 even rounds and scored it 116-114.

 

I need to watch the fight again, but did give Johnson at most 4 rounds with 1 drawn round from my initial watching of the fight.

 

I'd like to see cleverly take on johnson

 

There are other factors, like the test Kellerman claims to apply, viz who looks happier to be in there. Johnson was blowing hard quite early, he looked disconsolate at the end. Froch has this habit of never looking too badly out of place in the ring and always firing back to create the impression that he is more than in the fight at any given moment.

 

he would lose.

 

Agreed

 

i went to the fight this past weekend and it looked like former 'lineal' lightheavyweight champ Zsolt Erdei brought the most fans in the arena. he's usually boring, but actually put on a show against the heavily faded byron mitchell.

 

As with many of Johnson's fights, I thought it was much closer than the judges saw it, and feel that Froch got too much credit simply for having the faster hands.

Johnson landed most of the clean punches, while Froch seemingly got more credit for his combinations to Johnson's gloves.

Thing is, Johnson had to know he'd need a knock-out to win, given what was at stake (a spot in the finals). Meanwhile, Froch was alerted by his coach in every round when there were 10 seconds left, flurried meaninglessly, and deliberately sought to win the fight this way.

Froch clearly has an impressive chin and supreme stamina to have survived Johnson's impressive efforts at violence. But I don't think he was exactly the balls to the walls fighter in there that he and his supporters like to claim he is. Fighters like that don't seek to win rounds in the final 10 seconds of a fight, and don't fight off their heels, having made no legitimate effort to put any hurt on Johnson.

If I'd been a judge, I would've given the fight to Johnson. It'd been a biased call on my part, but does anyone think any of the three judges who actually scored that fight, or press row for that matter, didn't judge that fight with biased themselves?

The public is clearly more interested in a fight between Froch and Ward. And as a result, Johnson needed a knock-out to overcome the hand-speed deficit he faced against Froch. Froch and his team knew this, and my guess, as I said, is that Johnson knew this as well.

The good news for Johnson is that despite losing, he put up a great fight, and in my opinion, it was his forward momentum and offense, moreso than Froch's flurries, that accounted for the excitement of the fight.

I won't be surprised at all to hear that Kessler's next fight will be against Johnson. Or that Bute takes on Johnson, possibly on the same card as Ward/Froch. It certainly won't be Bute vs. Kessler on the same card, and yet, for whomever wins the Super-Six, for what it's worth at this point, my guess is that Showtime will want to have a worthy opponent in the waiting.

The smart money is that Ward wins. Who wouldn't want to see Ward/Johnson should he win? Even following a close loss to Kessler, or better yet, an upset win.

Actually, Bute/Johnson would be the perfect under-card fight for the Super-Six championship fight, with the winners facing each other - Ward of course having beaten Froch, and Bute likely the winner over Johnson.

 

Fucking incredible waste of talent, and it shows the down-side of the strength of the German boxing scene. Erdei could have, in the post-Roy era, made some serious noise if he put his mind to it.

Beating up faded American 168lbrs does nothing for his or for Europe's reputation.athetic:

 

sounds like you're talking about Calzaghe.

 

Yeah, if you think Jeff Lacy got old overnight.:atu:

Which he kind of did.

If we are talking about Joe Calzaghe.:laughing:

FROCH!!! FROCH!!! BENSONHURST!!!!

 

Jones and Hopkins...give or take two pounds.

 

Joe is old news anyways. Froch doesn't like him. I doubt Froch would ever do drugs.

 

well, erdei is looking to fight hopkins next. i dont know, i've only seen him fight a few times and he's never impressed me. he was also boring to watch, but this past weekend, he really turned it up knowing that he was in against an ancient, shot fighter. plus, whatever portion of the crowd (hungarian based) were really cheering him on.

 

Johnson is just not that good of a fighter.

He is off-balance (he does not know how to), did not throw the hook after the right hand, and squares up when he has his man against the ropes as he does not know how to 45 over..he has not been taught how.