Carl Froch proved yet again that it's not how you start - but how you finish.
Nottingham's WBC world super-middleweight champion made the second successful defence of his title in his second reign as champion, earning a hard-fought majority decision over Miami-based Jamaican Glen Johnson at the Boardwalk Hall, Atlantic City, last night (June 4).
British judge Mark Green saw the self-styled 'Cobra' a 116-112 victor, American John Stewart had it wider at 117-111 but Japanese judge Nobuaki Uratani - in a bizzare piece of scoring for me - marked the 12-rounder level at 114 apiece.
For what it's worth, i had Froch a handy 117-113 winner.
But possibly more important than retaining the sought-after green belt, he will now meet undefeated WBA champion Andre Ward, watching on from ringside, in the Super Six final later in the year - with the right for the triumphant fighter to call himself the premier 12st fighter on the planet.
Will smooth-boxing Ward, who expected the younger man to win in the lead-up to the fight, be worried after seeing Froch disjointedly dispose of Johnson? It's doubtful. But the 2004 Olympic Games gold medalist seems an un-worried type of fighter who gives every opponent he's set to meet the maximum amount of respect.
Talking of respect, Johnson seemed to be receiving too much of that in the first 12 minutes of the absorbing 36-minute contest.
And despite pre-fight worries about how easily the 42-year-old former IBF light-heavyweight king made the 12st limit after a decade competing seven pounds north - he tipped the scales at 11st 12 1/2lbs - it was the East Midlander who looked the weaker of the two in the opening three sessions.
Yet we've come to expect loose Froch, trained by Birmingham's former British champion Rob McCraken, to roar back after a slow-ish start. Against another American, Jermain Taylor, he had to haul himself off the floor in the third before storming back and flatening the former undisputed middleweight king in the final stanza of their heart-stopping scrap in 2009.
Impressively-sculpted veteran Johnson, who has only been stopped by all-time great Bernard Hopkins in a 18-year, 68-fight career that has seen him swap leather with the cream of both the 168 and 175lbs divisions, didn't deck his opponent but ploughed forward (gloves pressed firmly against his temples) in the early stages - pumping, not to mention grunting, out a firm lead and accurate back hand.
And due to the familiar and lax nature of the 33-year-old's defence, hands low in order to whip his punches up through Johnson's guard in a Cobra-like fashion, his head was sent snapping back several times by solid right hands from a fired-up Jamaican who's ended 35 of his 51 wins early.
Froch did seem rattled on occasions but is renowned for an iron chin, adjusted his game-plan by the half-way stage, and started to put his punches together nicely.
Though he never really asserted any real dominance over Johnson - too many single shots and too much time waiting for the Roy Jones Jr conquerer to make the first move in the first three-quarters of the bout - he found plenty of hurtful, ripping right-hand punches that convinced his opponent not to make more of an argument over matters as the bout progressed.
In the final two sessions the 'Road Warrior', who has been on the short thrift of several questionable decisions in his 15 losses, looked weary - having his legs stiffened by whipping right uppercuts as he continued to march in with his gloves, as ever, held high like ear muffs.
And though Glen isn't afraid to be vocal if he feels he has been on the end of a bad decision, he didn't celebrate at the final bell or debate the verdict afterwards. A classy move from a classy boxer who is hard to look good against and proved that his career isn't at an end just yet.
"He can fight," said the magnanimous loser.
"It was very tough," admitted Froch, now 28-1 (20), whose only paid defeat was to a man who returned with an impressive six-round destruction in Denmark on the same night, Mikkel Kessler. "I hit him and nothing happened.
"I said beforehand it would be like hitting an old Oak tree and it was. He was definitely one of the toughest I've faced," paying coconut-skulled Johnson a well-deserved compliment. "But i was stuck in second gear for a lot of the fight, looking to pick him off, and i got caught with some silly shots. I was a bit cumbersome."
But it would be criminal not to mention the combined record of Froch's last seven opponents (Albert Rybacki; Jean Pascal; Jermain Taylor; Andre Dirrell; Mikkel Kessler; Arthur Abraham and Johnson), all of whom are (or were) world class: 206-19-3 (145). I can't think of any British fighter who has consistently competed at that level and won all but one, the defeat to Kessler being close.
Now on to 24-0 (13) Ward, 27, who hasn't lost since he was a 12-year-old amateur.
"He's a great fighter and a gentleman but i know exactly how to beat him," roared the ardent Nottingham Forest supporter.
Image courtesy of Tom Casino/Showtime.
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