By Scott Gilfoid: IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch (33-2, 24 KO’s) put an end to his rivalry with George Groves (19-2, 15 KO’s) tonight by stopping him in the 8th round with a right hand to the head at the Wembley Stadium in London, UK. The ending was sudden and shocking with Froch nailing Groves with a right hand shot that put him down on his back on the canvas.
Groves didn’t stir for a second or two while he was down on his back, and that was enough for the referee Charlie Fitch to stop the fight. But as soon as Fitch called a halt to the fight, Groves was able to sit up as if he had woken from a nap, and he immediately started protesting the stoppage. Fitch did the right thing in this case because Groves was badly hurt and Fitch had no way of knowing if he would get up.
The fight was a tactical affair for the first 6 rounds with neither guy going enough to really establish that they were the better fighter. But in the 7th, Groves tagged Froch with a couple of good shots that really got his attention. Groves dominated that round and looked good.
If he had fought smart like that for the remainder of the fight he’d have definitely won the fight. Unfortunately for Groves, he made the huge mistake of backing up to the ropes in the 8th and trying to fight Froch from that vantage point.
Groves should have known from his previous loss to Froch, as well as from the Froch vs. Lucian Bute fight, that you don’t want to back up against the ropes against Froch. But that was Groves being cocky, thinking he could dodge Froch’s shots and counter him. The strategy backfired on Groves with him getting blasted out with a right hand.
I imagine Froch’s promoter Eddie Hearn isn’t too happy with the definitive ending, because with the way that Froch stopped Groves this time there can be no third fight between them. That means that the only big payday out there for Froch now is a fight against James DeGale, who defeated Brandon Gonzales by a 4th round stoppage tonight to become the IBF super middleweight mandatory challenger for Froch’s IBF strap. I doubt that Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. or Gennady Golovkin will fight Froch, and Hearn already said that WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward isn’t a commercially viable option for Froch, so that fight’s not going to happen. If Froch hadn’t stopped Groves, they might have been able to milk the Froch-Groves series for another fight, but that’s not going to happen now.
“I’ve been in with some of the best fighters in the world, and it was neck and neck in there,” Froch said via skysports.com. “There was nothing in it, it was a close fight. It was a stand-off, tactical fight and sometimes in professional boxing it only takes one punch. And when you’ve got the punch that I’ve got it just shows that one punch can be all the difference and all it needs. Unfortunately for George he was on the end of a very heavy right hand from a seasoned champion. But we’ve both done ourselves proud tonight.”
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