Yesterday in Nottingham, Carl Froch demolished Lucian Bute to win the IBF super middleweight title. After the fight, he spoke with iFilm London's Kugan Cassius about the fight, again proving his critics wrong, and potential rematches with Mikkel Kessler and Andre Ward.
Kugan Cassius: "With me, I've got the new IBF world champion, Carl Froch. Carl, this must be one of the greatest nights of your life."
Carl Froch: "It feels great. I don't know if it's the greatest night of my life. (One of them), definitely. To come off a devastating defeat in America and then come back and fight an unbeaten fighter, and everybody thinks that you're not gonna do it, and you've not got quite what it takes to cut it at top level, to then do a performance like that and win the IBF world title in that kind of style, obviously I feel elated. It's amazing. It's brilliant."
KC: "Leading up to this fight, you said a lot of the press had picked him for a late stoppage or a points victory. Does that make this win even better? That you've gone there and absolutely battered him in five rounds? This unbeaten Canadian, that everyone questioned, didn't know how good it was."
CF: "Of course. It makes the victory so, so sweet, for everybody to doubt you, and write you off. After what I've achieved and what I've done, and who I've fought and the level I've fought out. For them to say Bute's gonna win, to then come here and do this, obviously it makes me feel brilliant. It makes me sweet. But it's counterproductive and self-destructive to bear grudges with people that are negative. I just laugh at it. I read the columns and I think to myself, OK, but I need some credit and I need some recognition off these people that are doubting me, because like you said, that was a pasting."
KC: "You said after in the post-fight interview with Sky that you were considering retiring if you lost that fight. Is that true? Were you seriously thinking of doing that?"
CF: "I would always sit down with my trainer Rob and discuss that before I made any rash decisions, but I feel that camp's gone so well, and I've been concentrating and focusing so hard and sparring so well, that if I couldn't come to my hometown and perform against Lucian Bute -- who's a great fighter, but I've said before I didn't rate him rate him. I know what kind of a fighter he is, he's a good fighter. But the preparation is gone, and everything I've done, and the desire's there. If you work so hard for something, and then you try and you fail, it can just take that out of you. I knew what I did wrong for Ward. I knew I wasn't at the races. I did things wrong, I was bored out in New York again for the second time in the same year. I didn't really want it. I really wanted this. That was the difference. When you really, really want something, and you put your mind to it, and your heart and soul into it, if then you don't get it, you've got to seriously question yourself. Are you good enough, have you got what it takes to continue? But that didn't happen."
KC: "If you could have your choice to have a rematch with Kessler or a rematch with Andre Ward, which one would you pick?"
CF: "I'd pick Kessler every day of the week. I've got no interest in Andre Ward at the minute. He's talking about stepping up to light heavyweight, then he's talking about getting Chad Dawson to come down to super middle. Which I don't think Chad Dawson should do, to be honest. He should stay at the weight he's comfortable at. He's giving away all his advantages draining himself to get down to super middle. But the Ward fight for me is a fight that I would like to avenge, but on my terms. I don't want to go to California and fight Mr. Big Shot or, you know, listen to his rubbish. I just beat an unbeaten, top-rated fighter, and I showed what I can do when I'm on form. Andre Ward got a very, very poor Carl Froch that night. He was fortunate to fight me on a bad night, because if he fights me when I'm firing on all cylinders like that, he's getting battered as well. It's as simple as that."