Pavlik could be next opponent for Froch

Carl Froch says that former world middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik could the opponent for his next fight.

Froch will make the first defence of the IBF super-middleweight title he won by wiping out Lucian Bute in Nottingham on either November 3 or 10.

And it appears that 30-year-old Pavlik fits the bill perfectly.

"Pavlik has been calling me out, so I'd like to shut him up," Froch said.

"If we can get him over to Nottingham, that's one that fans would want."

Pavlik, nicknamed "The Ghost", first stamped his name on the boxing map in September 2007 when he halted undisputed middleweight champion Jermain Taylor in Atlantic City.

He lost a catchweight bout to Bernard Hopkins in late 2008 but remained the middleweight kingpin until he was dethroned by Sergio Martinez in April 2010

"He's just one name, and there are a couple of other names that Eddie [Hearn, Froch's promoter] is looking at. We're looking at 3 November, or 10 November - they're the two dates that have been pencilled in," Froch explained.

"It gives me an opportunity to fight again in Nottingham and to defend the IBF title," Froch said. "So we're trying to find a feasible opponent - someone who's decent and ranked in the top five in the world. 

"Then, in the New Year, there's the rematch with Bute or a rematch with Mikkel Kessler, which to me is more appealing than the rematch with Bute. 

"But he wants to exercise his rematch clause in his home town of Montreal and you can't blame him for wanting to do that. 

"I think no matter what Bute does now, having lost in such a fashion against me, nobody's going to take him seriously. Whatever he does, they're gonna say 'you got whooped by Carl Froch'"