Carl Froch On Biting Andre Ward, Calzaghe Ghosting Him & Leaving The UK

14 years later, Carl ‘The Cobra’ Froch sits down face-to-face with Andre Ward. The 2023 Hall of Famer, 4-time super middleweight world champion, and one of the most fearless personalities in boxing pulls up to THE ART OF WARD for a conversation almost nobody thought would ever happen.

Froch walks Andre through the full story. From a skinny kid in Nottingham getting flattened on a rugby pitch, to walking back into a boxing gym at 19, to becoming a four-time world champion at super middleweight. He gets into the Pascal war, the Jermain Taylor stoppage with torn ankle ligaments and a scratched cornea three weeks out, the Lucian Bute destruction, the controversial first Groves fight he openly admits he was under-trained for, and the 80,000-strong Wembley KO that closed his career. And then he gives Andre what nobody expected: a flat-out admission that he bit Andre’s shoulder during their 2011 Super Six final, his read on the body shots Andre took that night that left him unable to move for a week after, and his decision to pull his family out of England for good and move to Dubai. He also tells the real story on Joe Calzaghe ghosting their planned exhibition, and weighs in on whether he’d actually get back in a ring with Andre Ward today.

This is one of the most loaded sit-downs in The Art of Ward’s run. Don’t miss it. Subscribe to All The Smoke Fight for more raw conversations with boxing’s biggest names. Tap in.

0:00 Intro — Carl Froch comes on the show
1:35 How Andre and Froch reconnected through David Haye
5:40 Froch on leaving Sky Sports and going independent
5:59 Growing up in Nottingham
7:23 Family background and his relationship with his father
11:47 His unorthodox style and the four-year break from boxing at 15
13:47 Coming back to boxing at 19 and turning professional
28:00 The Jean Pascal fight — his first world title
35:00 The Jermain Taylor fight — torn ankle, scratched cornea, three weeks out
44:00 The Super Six World Boxing Classic — entering the tournament
51:53 First meeting with Andre Ward at the Super Six press conference
55:21 Froch’s honest scouting report on Ward going into their fight
58:27 The 2011 Super Six Final — what really happened that night
1:01:15 Froch admits he bit Andre’s shoulder during the fight
1:24:11 Froch’s honest self-assessment
1:26:01 The body shots that left Andre unable to move for a week
1:27:45 Lucian Bute — the destruction in Nottingham
1:31:58 George Groves — the controversial first fight
1:32:32 Wembley Stadium — 80,000 fans and the KO that ended his career
1:38:01 Would Froch and Ward do an exhibition today?
1:40:58 The Joe Calzaghe exhibition that never happened
1:41:27 Life after boxing
1:45:29 Why Froch is moving his family out of England to Dubai
1:50:11 Wrap-up

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