Froch stops Taylor by TKO

Nottingham, England’s Carl Froch (25-0, 20 KO’s) retained his super middleweight title with a 12^th round TKO of former undisputed middleweight champ Jermain Taylor (28-3, 17 KO’s) Saturday night at the MGM Grand Foxwoods in Mashantucket, CT. Official time of the TKO was 2:46 of the 12^th frame.

“I knew I was behind and I knew I needed a big round, that’s why I put my foot on the gas”, said Froch afterwards.

The fight was not shown on UK TV live, a fact that Taylor promoter Lou Dibella called an “abomination”. Nevertheless, Froch promoter Mick Hennessy was positively thrilled with the results of the fight and felt there would be no shortage of demand for Froch’s next fight on UK TV.

“(This fight is) the sort of thing dreams are made of” said Froch promoter Hennessy afterwards, “That was the best performance from Jermain Taylor since he beat Bernard Hopkins twice and it took a special fighter to beat him tonight, and that special fighter was Carl Froch”.

Froch recouped from being knocked down in the 4^th round, the first time he’s tasted the canvas in his career, to stop Taylor in a drama drenched 12^th. Froch scored a knockdown midway through the round and was able to finish off his opponent with 1 4 seconds remaining.

Froch was trailing on 2 different scorecards heading into the 12^th and final round.  Taylor was ahead 106 – 102 twice on official scorecards, while Froch was ahead 106-102 on another. 8countnews.com had Taylor ahead going into the 12^th frame 106-102.

“I thought I was down” said Taylor afterwards in the post fight press conference. Trainer Ozell Nelson took blame for telling Taylor to fight the last 2 rounds as opposed to box and stay away.

Promoter Lou Dibella mentioned that the press row scoring from the Showtime broadcast feed shown on the arena big screens may have had a negative effect on the fighters and should not be done for future reference. However, he also pointed out that he cannot have sour grapes over the result due to the fact that Taylor was stopped.

Froch summed up the experience by saying, “that fight will make me a better fighter”.