Carl Froch blames Anthony Joshua or Eddie Hearn for 'disappointing' December 23 card also featuring Deontay Wilder
14/11/2023 14:21
Carl Froch has not been blown away by the proposed December card featuring both Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder.
The plan is that Joshua would fight previous Tyson Fury opponent Otto Wallin and Wilder will fight former world champion Joseph Parker on the same card in Saudi Arabia on December 23.
The undercard would also be star-studded, with fighters such as Dmitry Bivol, Daniel Dubois Filip Hrgovic, Frank Sanchez, Arslanbek Makhmudov and many others rumoured to also be on the card.
With that being said, Froch is underwhelmed by the main events, having hoped that Joshua and Wilder would be fighting each other.
“It’s a bit disappointing for AJ to be fighting Wallin instead of Deontay Wilder, because the AJ vs Wilder fight for me is a very big fight, it’s a fight I could look forward to, it’s a fight I could get excited about,” Froch told talkSPORT.
“It’s one of them where you think, ‘what happens?’ Does AJ get absolutely obliterated and knocked out in a couple of rounds because he’s a bit mentally still tentative in the way in which he does his work? Or does AJ actually turn up and put on a boxing masterclass and maybe even finish off WIlder?
“There’s so many different outcomes, it’s a juicy fight, so to now find out that AJ’s fighting Wallin, I’m disappointed.
“But, you can see Anthony Joshua, Eddie Hearn and his team are still in the rebuilding process, because Otto Wallin is not a bad fight.
“It’s AJ back out there against someone who is quite capable, we saw him against Tyson Fury and he gave him that nasty cut, he’s on a run of a few decent little wins since then, but let’s be honest it’s nothing to get too excited about.”
Instead, if the Wilder fight can’t happen, Froch would rather see Joshua against one of the other boxers on the card, saying: “There’s plenty of names there that could jump in with Anthony Joshua and give us a more exciting fight than Otto Wallin.
“It’s frustrating and it’s annoying… My first feeling is I’m disappointed with the AJ vs Wilder fight being off and then it’s hard to see past that…
“It’s more like stalling tactics and delaying what we want as boxing fans.”
As for who Froch believes is at fault for the Joshua vs Wilder fight not happening next, he said: “I put that blame totally on Eddie Hearn or Anthony Joshua.
“Because if AJ wanted to fight Wilder and he was confident enough to make a statement by fighting someone like Wilder and do what Tyson Fury had done twice… then what a statement that would be.
“For me that’s a mega fight, Anthony Joshua vs Deontay Wilder, and that’s been pulled.
“We’ve had the rug pulled out from under our feet, the fans, because we want to see these fights and they’re not happening and they’re all getting paid mega money out in Saudi.”
