Carl Froch retires from boxing

Froch, nicknamed The Cobra, twice won the WBC title, as well as the WBA and IBF belts, during a highly-successful career.

The Nottingham-based star won 33 of his 35 fights, with 24 of those coming via knockout.

He defeated arch-rival George Groves in a Wembley Stadium re-match which turned out to be his final fight in May of last year.

Froch said: "I’m incredibly proud of what I have achieved in boxing but now is the right moment to hang up my gloves.  I have nothing left to prove and my legacy speaks for itself.

"I've got no regrets. I'm not retiring undefeated but in many ways that's better because I've boxed everybody, I've faced every challenge.

"So many athletes, not just boxers, don't get their defining moment. I've probably had seven or eight defining moments, but the biggest and best was on the platform of Wembley Stadium in front of 80,000 fans. It was amazing and to get that defining moment is enough."

He will now become a pundit for Sky Sports' boxing coverage.

He added on the channel: "Making the decision to retire and saying - it's been a year, it's too long, the fighting machine has gone, it's not going to come back - it's still hard.

"The last thing I think about before my head hits the pillow is boxing, and when I wake up in the morning to think what time it is, and I think it's half six, seven o'clock, should I be going for a run?, where's my trainers? - it's a lifestyle, a way of life, and it's a mindset. I'll always have that and I think I'll always be itching for the big fight.

"There's no greater feeling for me than standing victorious in the arena and I'm never going to get that again now, and I don't know where I'm going to get that feeling from.

"I don't know where it's going to come; maybe it's not. That's what I'm turning my back on and that's what's going to be difficult to do, but there comes a time in every man's career where he's got to say, 'That's it, enough's enough'.

"I feel civilised now. I feel like Carl Froch the fighting machine is still in there - the fire is still in the belly - but it's been too long.

"I just feel like that fighting machine that I love so much and that I need to be to compete at the top level, I feel like it's been put away for too long, and I don't know if I can get hold of him again and go one more time. I really don't think I could."

Froch first won a version of the world title in 2008 when he defeated Jean Pascal in his home city.

He went on to suffer just two defeats, losing to Mikkel Kessler and Andre Ward during the Super Six World Boxing Classic tournament which pitted the world's best from the division against each other.

He later avenged his defeat to Kessler before twice fighting British rival Groves. The first fight ended in controversy which resulted in the Wembley rematch, watched by a crowd of 80,000.

Retirement talk soon followed but it appeared Froch would fight again earlier this year only for an injury to scupper hopes of a Las Vegas meeting with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.

Suggestions that Froch could fight veteran Bernard Hopkins or one of the new stars of the fight game, Gennady Golovkin, also came to nothing.

Froch's fight promoter Eddie Hearn said: "He's always tried to be a positive role model and I feel he can give back a lot to British boxing.

"He's given a lot as well. You should remember Carl Froch for the fighter that he is, someone that never ducked anyone, something that gave the paying public value for money every single day of the week."

Hearn told Sky Sports News: "I've learned a lot from being around him. He's an inspirational guy, and he's not someone who's come from the Olympic background and he's been given the platform to go out. He's grafted for every single penny, every bit of success he's ever had, and for that you have to give him ultimate respect."

Groves paid a qualified tribute to Froch, lauding him as a "tough, strong man" but questioning whether he would have been good enough to hold his own against previous British super-middleweight greats.

Groves and Froch did not hide their dislike for each other in the build-up to their two big bouts and the controversial manner of the stoppage in their first fight clearly still rankles with the Londoner.

Groves told Sky Sports News: "Carl Froch was a tough, strong man, very tough, I don't know how he would have got on with those guys.

"I don't think he'd have beaten Calzaghe, Calzaghe would have been too quick for him. Him and Nigel Benn would have been an out-and-out war. Benn has a bit more skill and class about him but that would have been a great fight to watch."

Groves, who has won two straight bouts since his second loss to Froch in May last year, said he hoped the pair could put their differences aside now that Froch had hung up his gloves.

"I'd love that (to be friends) because then he'd stop digging me out and lying about me when I'm fighting," he added.

"We don't need to be friends of course: I've got friends. But there's a rivalry when you're going to box and now that he's no longer a fighter that rivalry isn't there."