By Scott Gilfoid: George Groves (19-2, 15 KO’s) fought well enough for the first 7 rounds to be essentially knotted up with IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch (33-2, 24 KO’s) last night, but then he royally blew it by backing up to the ropes like a 3-fight novice and got blasted out by Froch in getting knocked out in front of a partially filled 80,000 seat stadium at Wembley. Now Groves is saying he’d like another crack at Froch for a third fight between them.
“I’d love another chance. I don’t think I can’t beat Carl Froch, and I just sold out Wembley Stadium,” Groves said to IFL TV. “I’m sure I’ll become a world champion. It’s going to be the quickest route rather than the easiest route.”
I’d say the chances of Froch giving Groves another fight are not too good right now. Given the amount of money that the two fighters hauled in last Saturday, you can’t rule out a third fight between them, though, especially if Groves gets back in the ring and beats 1 or 2 big names. Also, if Froch loses his next fight later this year or the one after that, then I can definitely see Froch going backwards with his career and looking for someone he already beat before in a cash out fight against the likes of Groves, Lucian Bute and/or Jean Pascal.
That makes sense because if Froch gets scalped by Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. or Gennady Golovkin in his next fight, he’ll be no doubt licking his physical and mental wounds from the loss and will need a nice payday and confidence booster type of fight, and Groves is the perfect guy for that. He can help drum up interest in the fight by going on the interview circuit and restart the mental mind games with Froch to work him into a fit of anger as they approach a third fight. But like I said, Groves will need at least one or two good wins before they can start talking about selling a third fight between them to the British boxing public.
I don’t know that anyone would believe that Groves would have any chance of beating Froch if they were to fight one more time. It’s not that Groves doesn’t have the boxing skills to win. It’s just that he makes so many mistakes in the ring, and he makes it easy for Froch to capitalize on them like he did last Saturday night when Groves came up with the brilliant idea to retreat to the ropes instead of staying in the center of the ring. That was just brilliant strategy from Groves to think up that one. And in their fight last year, Groves came up with the idea to stand directly in front of Froch and slug it out instead of boxing. Groves made things even worse in that fight by electing to back straight up when under attack, and covering up rather than moving laterally to escape Froch’s attacks.
I wonder if Groves would have given Froch a rematch for a third fight if it were him to beat Froch instead of the other way around.
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