You're probably heard by now that Joe Calzaghe decided to vacate his WBC super middleweight title, which has opened the door for the WBC to order negotiations between mandatory challenger Carl Froch and former middleweight king Jermain Taylor.

Taylor has yet to move up to 168 officially, though it's been decided that he would do so since last summer, before he fought Kelly Pavlik for the first time. There have been talks of him fighting former Olympic teammate Jeff Lacy, who has an ESPN2 main event lined up right now, or Andy Lee upsetter Brian Vera, but the Froch fight would allow him to immediately go for a title.

From the Dan Rafael article linked above:

"I'm delighted to get the title fight and just hope Taylor shows a real fighting heart and goes through with this fight," Froch said. "I've heard he was talking about fighting Jeff Lacy next, but that fight is a mismatch in my opinion.

 

"I would knock Lacy out in a round or two and it is an easy fight for Taylor, so I just hope Jermain doesn't squirm out of this situation with me and I think the broadcasters shouldn't allow him to either," Froch said. "I heard Lou DiBella has said 'who the [heck] is Carl Froch to American television,' but he will know who the [heck] the 'Cobra' is when his fighter is laying horizontal in front of him. Then I will ask him what does he know about boxing?"

I'll be honest.

Froch is a great talker. But he looked awful in his April win over Albert Rybacki, even though he grabbed a fourth round TKO win. For a guy who's 30 years old and has a 23-0 record (19 KO), his record sheet is really, really soft. An old Robin Reid last year is probably his strongest win.

Taylor, meanwhile, looked as good as ever in his two losses to Pavlik. The first time he was just outgunned. The second time he fought Pavlik fairly evenly. He was a hair away from knocking Pavlik out in the second round of their first fight. Where would we be right now if that had happened?

Jermain is on a different level than Froch. I agree with Carl that Taylor would have a pretty easy time with Jeff Lacy. Lacy is just not very impressive. But I don't think Froch would fare a whole lot better against Taylor than Lacy might, either.

I'd prefer Taylor-Froch to Taylor-Lacy, I suppose. Then maybe down the line we can see Jermain lock horns with Mikkel Kessler or Lucian Bute. And hey, what if Froch pulled the upset?