George Groves vs. Noe Gonzalez Alcoba on May 25th at the O2 Arena in London, UK

By Boxing News - 04/22/2013 - Comments

groves1By Scott Gilfoid: Well, so much for George Groves (18-0, 14 KO’s) fighting a top 10 contender for his May 25th fight at the O2 Arena in London, UK. Groves’ promoter Eddie Hearn had talked about him fighting a highly ranked contender for his next fight to lock him in as the mandatory for WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz.

Instead, Groves will be fighting the recently knocked out fringe contender Noe Gonzalez Alcoba (30-2, 22 KO’s). If you remember it was only last year that Alcoba was knocked out in the 2nd round by Adonis Stevenson in Montreal, Canada. Stevenson came out fast, cornered Alcoba and blasted him out in one of the easiest fights of Stevenson’s career. And now we’ve got Hearn hand-picking Alcoba for Groves. It’s hilarious, predictable and just so, so sad.

I’m really disappointed in Hearns and Groves, but it’s utterly predictable that I’m not shocked by it. I fully expected for Groves to fight a soft touch and now my prediction has come true. What’s sad is the fight is a pay-per-view fight and this is to co-feature. Can you believe that? Groves-Alcoba as the co-feature bout in a PPV bout. The fight will be lucky if it makes it past the 1st round and that’s not because Groves is a great fighter.

Hearn might as well have picked out one of Groves’ recent soft touches like Baker Bakarat to fight again. I guess the UK fans won’t realize that #11 WBC Alcoba is an easy mark brought in to make sure that Groves gets a win, and they probably won’t complain about it. I see Alcoba as pretty much along the same lines as Bakarat and Dario German Balmaceda in talent.

It’s fine for Groves to be taking tune-up fights one after another, but being that this is the co-feature bout on the Carl Froch vs. Mikkel Kessler fight card, it’s just incredibly funny. I can’t even see this as a fourth fight on the card. To me, it’s a fight that should be buried on the bottom of the card without television play because it’s sickening mismatch. At least Hearn could have done was find someone that was winning and look good instead of a guy that was stopped by Stevenson last year in only 2 rounds.



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