Carl Froch plans to avenge defeats by Mikkel Kessler and Andre Ward as ring romance still burns bright But his fifth-round stoppage of a formerly unbeaten opponent, sealed with a flurry of haymakers against the ropes, spoke of a man who had earned his place in the pantheon. "Whenever I catch somebody with a shot that's hurtful, I'm always going to take over," Froch explains. I had trained so hard, I was expecting to get the reward. With that mindset, your fights tend to be easy. Bute was probably shocked that I caught him so early. But I wasn't surprised that I dominated. Arms like pistons and his face barely marked by last weekend's duel, Froch radiates inner conviction. He arrives for this interview with a relatively compact entourage, flanked only by Rob McCracken, his lugubrious trainer, and excitable Jerry Maguire-style promoter Eddie Hearn, who leapt into the ring while the stricken Bute was still taking the count. Both appreciated, as did he, that defeat would have left his entire career at stake. "If I had lost the fight, I would have retired," he says, firmly. The notion does not appear to have brought him undue anxiety. It gave me peace of mind. It made me feel as if, "I'm going to go out gunslinging, in a blaze of glory if I have to." What did I have to lose? Nothing at all, if the raptures that washed over Froch in his home town of Nottingham were any clue. Having lost his previous fight to Andre Ward in Atlantic City in a laboured points battle, he approached his latest bout on local turf with renewed clarity of purpose. It was against a guy whom everybody felt would beat me, so what was the worst that could have happened? I disappear into the sunset. But the training had been so intense, the preparation so perfect, that I decided I would not let myself down. I had nothing to prove to anybody. I had a great amateur career, I have done very well financially. There was no pressure on me in that fight besides my love and enjoyment of the sport. When you reach that position, you can relax. And that is what I did: I just let my shots hit. As a consequence, the vistas for Froch have opened up spectacularly. While there is suggestion of a move up to light-heavyweight, he remains preoccupied by the prospect of a rematch with Denmark's Mikkel Kessler, to whom he succumbed in Herning two years ago. Even the mention of Kessler's name agitates him, as he lapses into the hackneyed rhetoric of the weigh-in: "By fight time it will be two gladiators, doing what they do best." Curiously, the pair of them maintain a genuine friendship outside the ring, and Froch's mother, Carol, is adamant she does not wish to see a repeat - deeming Kessler too much of a "gentleman." Her son, though, is unsentimental: "Friendship goes out of the window. Respect before, respect after, but not during. Froch derives intense pride from the fact that the only blemishes on his card, against Ward and Kessler, have been the product of marginal points decisions. "I've never been beaten up," he stresses. And this is the fight game. As such, he targets the avenging of those aberrations as his first priorities, but maintains a healthy hinterland of separate interests to contemplate a life beyond boxing. I have a property portfolio all over the country. It's ever-expanding: I'm looking at land and my brother, Lee, is in the building game. I'm very successful outside boxing. I am sound for money, and so are my family. Straight after his savage eclipse of Bute, Froch was celebrating with his International Boxing Federation belt alongside striking girlfriend Rachael Cordingley, a former "Miss Maxim." The significance of her support in his life is self-evident, even if his compliment is somewhat backhanded. Dwelling upon the birth of his son, Rocco, he says: "If anything, it has made me softer, which could be viewed as a negative. But Rocco is the most important person in my life. Rachael's the mother of my children and I love her dearly, but Rocco's more so. He's my little boy, he's vulnerable, he's not even two years old. So for me, he's the first priority. Rachael's second and boxing's third. One hopes Miss Cordingley accepts the comment in the spirit in which it is intended. In the wake of 29 professional victories, Froch has reset his parameters. World title contests are the only engagements he will entertain. At this stage of my career, I need to be in with Kessler or Ward: somebody who is mandatory opposition, up there with the top five in the world. I want to mix it with the best. I have had all my easy fights. I have the British title - the Lonsdale belt is on my shelf and I'm extremely proud of it. But I would never fight for a British title again. I could never do what Audley Harrison is doing now, just keeping fighting. I think it's a shame, terrible. I suppose you cannot say he's losing his dignity, because this is such a tough sport. But some people fight purely for the money. And I could think of easier ways to earn a living. I'm not in boxing for a living any longer. When I first turned pro I clearly wanted a few quid in the bank, but lately I have been in boxing because I adore it. I love fighting, watching my body change shape and size over the course of 12 weeks. And I love challenging myself. All my training is diarised: I have diaries dating back 10 years, from 2002 to 2012, writing down every single run, press-up and sit-up that I've ever done. Everything is logged, including my state of mind. I'm not like Adrian Mole, it's not a deep diary, but it's a physical record. I can see what I've done compared to what I used to do. Froch, the Adrian Mole of boxing? Now there would be an unconventional epitaph. Mercifully for this meticulous book-keeper, The Diary of Carl Froch, Aged 34¾ would appear to have some way to run yet.