Carl Froch v Ruben Groenewald
Carl Froch v Ruben Groenewald
The 28-year-old Nottingham fighter, returning from hand surgery, overcame his durable London-based opponent with a sustained flurry of punches which forced referee Howard Foster to stop the bout.
The entertaining victory gave Froch his 17th professional victory after outclassing the former WBU middleweight champion.
In the first round, Froch found his range with the jab but was forced to take several shots from the game Groenewald.
The fight opened up in the second round when Groenewald lunged forward before both boxers reverted to sizing each other up from a distance.
A left hook by Froch in the third put Groenewald on the back foot and he forced the challenger to touch down briefly as Froch punched away regardless at the end of the round.
In a thrilling fourth round Froch looked to press home the advantage, keeping the momentum with sustained pressure though Groenewald’s alert countering continued to pose a threat.
Groenewald continued to soak up pressure in the fifth as Froch continued to land regularly with strong, carefully planted jabs and straight right hands.
And when Froch pinned him in the corner to systematically land shot after shot with nothing coming back from Groenewald referee Foster stepped in to wave it off, much to the delight of Froch’s home town support at the Nottingham Arena.
Afterwards Froch said: “It was not a bad stoppage. I took my time. I was relaxed and picked my punches.
“He has got a very hard head, he did not want to be stopped, he wanted to carry on and I have a lot of respect for him.
“But I am a different level and I outclassed him. I’m in a different league.”
Froch said he was targeting Northern Ireland’s Brian Magee next but had his sights set on WBO super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe.
“Brian Magee is one above me in the British rankings but I’d do the same to Brian as I did to Ruben and I’m looking forward to that fight,” he told Sky Sports. “I want the fight with Calzaghe. That is what I am looking for.
“No-one can deny me. I keep defending my British and Commonwealth titles, I’ll step up to Europe and then onto the world stage.
“I’m looking at shocking the world. I’m going to bring some world titles back to Britain.”
Esham Pickering made a quick return to the ring after losing his Commonwealth and European super-bantamweight titles to British champion Michael Hunter in October.
Pickering, who is vying for a rematch after their fight of the year contender, won a six-round points victory over Frenchman Frederic Bonifai on the undercard.
