In this exclusive interview with Crowns Gym Beckenham, we dive deep into the journey of Champion Boxer Carl Froch, exploring the highs, lows, and defining moments that shaped his career inside and outside the ring.
In this exclusive interview with Crowns Gym Beckenham, we dive deep into the journey of Champion Boxer Carl Froch, exploring the highs, lows, and defining moments that shaped his career inside and outside the ring.
Q: It’s your first day stepping in the gym. Talk us through what your feelings were and your emotions. How did it look? How did it smell? Can you remember it? Is it stuck in your mind?
As a kid, I loved it. I loved the smell. I could smell the sweat on the gloves you’d borrow. You’d take the gloves off and your hands would stink, but it’s like a nice smell where you go back to it and you go “oh yeah, them gloves”, and that smell triggers the memory. I remember I used to play at a rugby club on a Sunday morning, freezing my f***ing nuts off. I was only 5ft2 when I left school. Quite skinny. I used to get f***ing hammered. I’d run with the ball to try to have a go but get taken out by the big boys. It was freezing cold and I remember thinking “what am I doing here?”. I did it for about five or six months and just thought it was horrible so I got back into boxing. I’d been boxing since I was around eight or nine years old. I used to go into the gym and liked it because in the winter, the heating and the lights are on! I liked the red bag and the boxing ring. You’re inside – It’s nice and warm. You’re just hitting the bag and punching it away and getting a sweat on. I was always good at hitting and not getting hit and being a bit elusive so boxing for me was something that I took to immediately probably because I hated playing rugby so much. I love rugby itself. I love watching it but I just used to get, f***ing hammered because I was so small and light. I was quick when I got the ball but if a lad ran into me, I’d just get hammered. I loved boxing. I had a big brother who was always fighting, a little brother who was always play-fighting, all the Van Damme movies and Bruce Lee. When I was boxing I just enjoyed it. The smell of the gloves, the colours of the bags, the lights in the gym, the warmth, sparring in the ring, sweating, skipping. I just loved it all. I used to enjoy getting good at skipping because when you’re a kid and you can skip, you can show off a little bit. Mainly I loved sparring because of my older brothers who’s two years older, when the kids at school like Chris Duffy were all bigger than me, all older than me, all sat on the bench around the ring and you’re waiting, your gum showing in your hand. You’re waiting to get picked up for it. Chris is like two years older than me, heavier than me and I’d be beating him up! He’d be like “f***ing hell you’ve done me there kid!”.
I used to love boxing and my big brother would be there as well. So from a young age, from eight years old, right from the box until I was about 15. But then we moved to Newark and I didn’t box for four years until I came back to Nottingham and got back into it at 19 years old. If you’d have seen me at 19, f***ing tall, skinny, unfit, you’d never believe I’d get to where I did. I didn’t get any strength until I was around 19 because I was a late developer. If I’d have kept boxing from 15 through to 19, a lot of fighters were going to tournaments and national championships and ABA’s. When you get to 16/17, it’s weight and not age. When I was boxing, you had to be within a year in age and you had to be in the same weight. When you come senior at around 17, you could be fighting a 20 year old who has a hairy chest and is covered in tattoos thinking “F***ing hell you’re bigger than me.” They’ve got that man strength so you get battered. If that would’ve happened to me, that might have put me off the sport and had been the end of it. I had four years out and in that time I was able to grow, develop, and then get that desire back for the sport. Everything has a reason, I believe God had his plan for me and he is never wrong. My journey was to not box for four or five years, get back into it at 19 and I did–I loved it. I got back into it on the back of watching Lennox Lewis and Prince Naseem Hamed. Others as well like Conor Benn and Eubank–even Frank Bruno against Tyson even though he got beat, it’s just that inspiring. The old boxing thing… Everyone was on it back in the day. I got back into it myself and just loved it. At the time, I was working and I wasn’t earning much because I worked at a local place doing finance. It was an office job. I remember thinking “I’m not earning much money. I’m never going to get to where I want to get to. I’m never going to get that Ferrari. I’m never going to get the money for doing what I’m doing.” I had one shot, which was boxing. I just went for it and enjoyed it. When you enjoy something, it doesn’t feel like work.
Q: Has it always been easy to show up to training?
I used to walk down the hill whilst wrapping my hands because I was so excited to get to the gym. I wanted to get straight in there and straight on the rope. I used to go Monday to Wednesday and Sunday as well from the age of 10, 11, 12. When I got a bit older and was in tournaments, I got picked to box for England. That’s when I really started to enjoy it because I knew I had an opportunity to go to the Olympics. I used to go to Crystal Palace and David Haye was there and a few other fighters that I’m still friends with now, and it just feels serious.
You had the England investor, traveling around Europe, fighting different multi nation tournaments. You fight Russians and people from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan who are older men. Like they were 30/31 years old and I was only 19, 20. Some Cubans too but they were mainly at main tournaments. There was a tour in Eastern Europe. We used to fight some Cubans. They’d come to the Worlds and the Olympics to beat everyone up and then go back to Cuba. Cubans were the best. They never go pro. So, because they don’t go pro, they are more pro.
Mario Kindelan beat Amir Khan in the Olympics. Khan got him back in the end but I think that was a fix. And Felix Savon, the heavyweight. Some of the best fighters in the world! I boxed a guy called Luis Garcia and had a spar with him, and he was just unbelievably talented. Too good for me. Phenomenal. Way too good. He’s in the Cuban regime. He fled Cuba and came to Ireland. I sparred with him in Ireland for my first world title. But then they start smoking or drinking and they start relaxing. They don’t want it anymore. But there is some unbelievable talent.
Q: Who inspired you the most back in the day? You mentioned some people there and who inspires you now still to this day?
Prince Naseem Hamed. Just because he was a showman. Low guard, nonchalant, didn’t give a f**k. Big upper cut to knock them out. He was a good fighter. The first live fight I saw properly was Marco Antonio Barrera vs Prince Naseem Hamed. I was absolutely skint. Maxed out my credit card to get the flight out to Las Vegas for that fight. I think it was 700 quid. I lost my last hundred dollars to a Mexican next to me, with a $100 bet. He won the bet from me, my mate Jason and my brother Lee. All through the fight he was blowing down my ear hole and all.
Q: Is there an art to what you do and how you do it? Is boxing an art for you?
I suppose boxing is art, the art of pugilism. It’s the ability to hit and not get hit, and the movement and the balance and the timing. So of course, it is an art. Any martial art, whether it’s jujutsu, karate, TaeKwonDo, even UFC, it’s all an art. It’s creative as well. It’s martial arts, boxing, not a martial art, but for me, because I’ve done it from when I was a young age, there’s natural ability, but then it was hard work still. The old 10,000 hours.
You take a young lad at eight years old and do two, three times a week in a boxing gym, you’ll be able to throw a jab right on the left or body shots, he’ll be fit and his heart rate drops. He’ll be strong to do his pushups and situps. He’ll be in shape. But can he fight? You find out if you can fight when you get punched in the face. You find out if you want it or if you can take a punch. If you don’t mind the pain and you and your ability to absorb punishment and want to still stand there and have a fight with somebody. For me, it’s based on what adversity you’ve been through before that point.
So if you’ve got a privileged life like my son. And you go to a private school and you’ve got two little sisters and you play golf – he still boxes. He gets to the gym, he boxes, and he is in unbelievable shape, that shape when I was at his age. But that fight in the dog, you know what I mean? That comes from adversity. Comes from my dad being in prison and having a big brother who used to batter me, and I’ve been in street fights all the time. Growing up in pubs and working the door with my dad and getting in scrapes and getting outta scrapes. Boxing since I was a kid.
And just being in there and enjoying it and loving it and. That, that desire to keep going. Even when, when you’re in the face of adversity, like you get dropped in a round and you sit down in your corner and you think, f*cking hell, I don’t like this. I don’t want him to go out for the next round. I’m getting battered here. He’s too quick for me. He’s just f*cking dropped me for the first time in my career. I’m not thinking that though. I’m thinking ‘cheeky f*cker’. I’m gonna get him back this round and McCracken’s going, no, no, no, no. Get behind your jab.
Let him give him three or four hours on your back foot. Work out as he comes. Meet him. As he comes, then get back on your bike. So I’m not thinking I wanna go home, this is all, I’m not enjoying it. I’m thinking, I wanna get the f*cker back. He dropped me. I want to punch him in the face as hard as I can. If you’re not, if you’re not of that mindset. If you’re gonna want to go home, like Ryan Garcia, when he fought Gervonta Davis. Garcia’s got a massive follow on social media. He’s a bit of an Insta star and he is a good fighter. He can punch hard. And I got respect for him. But when he fought Jovan Davis, who was from Baltimore.
All of his mates are either dead or in prison, and he got out of that by boxing. He’s a ruthless f*cking killer. And when he is in that ring, he’s trying to decapitate. And Garcia is a top fighter. Really good skill. Big puncher. But when he fought Davis. Davis weathered the storm, got hit with a shot and as soon as Davis hit the body, Ryan Garcia went down after he’d given everything. Garcia thought to himself, I don’t f*cking fancy this, I don’t want this anymore. And, and he stayed down for nine seconds, got up, the ref waved off and I thought, you just quit.
You just f*cking quit it. And he probably learned from that and he’ll come back again. He’s got the skills and the desire to come again. But the difference there was his upbringing. And coming from adversity as a kid and being naturally innate in your body and your mind and your heart. You can be a top amateur and have all the skills all you need, but until you turn pro, you won’t find out if you’ve got it up there and in there. And that’s what you need. You need that, and you won’t find out until you’ve got that, until you get punched in the f*cking face. You’re in round six and your legs go, and your eyes closed, and your nose was broken.
Your jaws f*cking hurting, and your right hand smashed, so you can’t use it. And you’re still saying, I’m still in this fight. The final bell ain’t f*cking going yet. Get me back out there. I’ve got another two, three rounds to go like I did against Jermaine Taylor. I was beaten in every department. It was too fast for me, too skillful. He dropped me in round three. It was the first time I’ve ever been on the floor in my career. And in round 10 and round 11 when I was going out, I was thinking, I’ve lost this fight on points. I knew I’d lost on points. I’ve to stop him. Got to get on him and stop.
And I’m walking forward, walking into shots, getting caught, walking, f*cking out, getting to him. They’re still landing on shots and you see what happened? Got him in the dying seconds, the last round. To do that. I mean, it just shows it’s, it’s up there.
Q: One more question from Crown’s gym. If you hadn’t followed sports for a profession, what would you have wanted to do and where would you have been?
I used to love snooker. I used to go into pubs, I used to play pool a lot. And I got into playing snooker. I used to play poker and I used to be fighting every weekend. So scrapping, poker and snooker. And that’s what I do now. Playing poker professionally. Coin poker, Crypto-based, Blockchain technology and I’m really enjoying it. And a bit of fighting. I can fight a little bit and I can still play Snooker. I’m a fan of Steve Davis, Steven Andrew, Ronnie O’Sullivan. I know Ronnie quite well. I sometimes go to a local player. I was never that good. I was just a little player. I used to play killer and play pool. I was in the pool team.
But if I didn’t box, I’d have 100% joined the Army. I did the training. I did everything but actually go ‘what stopped you boxing?’. So I got back into boxing and I finished school. I was at college. I wasn’t enjoying it. Doing a business and finance course. I thought I’ve had enough for this load of sh*t. But I was back in the boxing gym. And I could have been an army boxer. I lost my first ABA title as an amateur to a guy called Chris Bessey who was an army champion.
A Commonwealth game gold medalist. He won the ABAs about four or five times. So he is just floating around in the world. In the army, in boxing. The army boxer would get a great life. I was thinking that’s an option. But I’ll never be a pro boxer if I do that. I’m glad I didn’t join because I don’t think I’d wanna fight for this country. I don’t like the direction it’s going, so they don’t deserve my blood, sweat, and tears.