Amazing Andre Ward made Carl Froch look bad

Froch himself summed up the outcome after I had interviewed him for Radio 5 live: “It wasn’t that close, was it?”

He then told me that, usually, when he unwraps the bandages after fights, his hands are swollen and sore. This time, they were unscathed. “Because I couldn’t catch him,” he said with a wry smirk.

For Froch, many options remain. A rematch with Denmark’s Mikkel Kessler, who beat him last year, external in Froch’s only previous reverse in a world title fight, or a challenge to the IBF title-holder Lucian Bute of Romania are possibles.

And, given his comment last week that he felt he had four more years in the game, he could still be around if or when George Groves, external and/or James DeGale, external graduate to world championship class.

Ward, though, has left the building. He belongs in a different class.

Two years ago, relatively unheralded outside Oakland, California, he began the Super Six Classic with an inside-the-distance dismantling of Kessler, external, a man previously beaten only by Joe Calzaghe.

The former Olympic champion followed up with wins against Allan Green, external and Arthur Abraham, external, contests in which at least one judge gave Ward every round.