Carl Froch left Oleksandr Usyk baffled when he made a joke about the crowd at his rematch with George Groves.
Froch was in London at Usyk's media event to promote his upcoming world heavyweight title rematch with Anthony Joshua, which will take place at the 40,000-capacity Jeddah Superdome. And he attempted to include a quip about his own successes at the box office, which ended awkwardly due to the pair's language barrier.
It has become an inside joke in boxing circles for Froch to sneak in mentions of the time he and Groves fought in front of 80,000 fans at Wembley Stadium in 2014. He most famously did it with Floyd Mayweather in 2015, and has since made it a part of his brand.
But when he attempted to make the joke with Usyk, usually a jovial type in his own right, it fell flat due to the heavyweight champion's lack of English. He ran into Usyk while being interviewed by Pro Boxing Fans, with the Ukrainian asking Froch for a selfie before he made the remark.
"Did you know how many people I boxed in front of at Wembley Stadium?" Froch asked. "I boxed at Wembley Stadium, did you know how many people were there? 80,000."
Usyk attempted to respond, after clearly struggling to understand what his fellow fighter was saying. He told Froch that during his ring walk against Joshua back in September, in front of 63,000 at Tottenham Hotspur stadium, he felt it wasn't real.
The Brit then ensured him that he was "only joking", before insisting that the champion "can speak English". He also asked reporter Jonathan Nagioff to send him the clip, which was cropped and shared tens of thousands of times on social media.
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Usyk and Joshua's first bout was a massive success at the box office, selling out the massive London stadium in minutes and reportedly doing big numbers on pay-per-view. But due to the capacity at Tottenham only being around 64,000, it still falls short of that famous night when Froch and Groves fought in Wembley.
Joshua has some experience at the national stadium, headlining there twice against Wladimir Klitschko and then Alexander Povetkin. He also fought on an undercard at Wembley during his early professional career, defeating Matt Legg within a round on that fateful night when Froch defeated Groves.
Tyson Fury recently beat all records for attendance at the London venue with his world heavyweight title defence against Dillian Whyte in April. Over 94,000 fans were reported to have packed into the stadium to watch him knock out his fellow Brit within six rounds.
