groves04 (Photo credit: Team Sauerland) By Scott Gilfoid: Sauerland Events, the promoters for former two-time world title challenger George Groves (19-2, 15 KO’s), announced early this morning that Groves will face little known light hitting #3 IBF, #3 WBC Christopher Rebrasse (22-2-3, 6 KO’s) in a WBC super middleweight title eliminator on September 20th at the Wembley Arena in London, UK.

The winner of the Groves-Rebrasse fight will then become the WBC mandatory to WBC champion Sakio Bika, who may not be the champion after he faces Anthony Dirrell next month in their rematch on August 16th.

Rebrasse’s lack of power makes him the ideal opponent for Groves. It’s obvious that Sauerland wouldn’t pick a guy with have even a hint of power after the way Groves was knocked out in his last two fights against IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch. But none the less, Groves is going to have his chin tested if he can get past Rebrasse to face the winner of the Bika-Dirrell II fight, so it’s not as if Groves is going to be able to avoid punchers for the rest of his career.

Groves said ‘’This is a perfect fight for me. Rebrasse is a good opponent with a good record. Win this fight and I am back in the picture that is vitally important. I can’t wait to be world champion and it will happen in the near future. It is good to be back in boxing and back in at the deep end.”

The Wembley Arena has a seating capacity of 12,500, so it’s possible that the Groves-Rebrasse might sell it out, even though it’s hardly an exciting fight due to Rebrasse being an obscure fighter. We’re not talking Wembley Stadium here, because that would be laughable trying to sell out the stadium with this kind of less than exciting match-up.

There’s not much to say about the 6’2” Rebrasse other than he’s from France, he’s slow, upright, and very, very easy to hit. Rebrasse lacks power, as you can see from his 6 knockouts on his resume, which as I said is probably the main reason why he was selected for Groves rather than someone better known with arguably much more talent.

Up until his strange stoppage win over contender Mouhamed Ali Ndiaye last March, Rebrasse had done zero during his career. I mean, the guy had beaten guys that few fans have ever heard of in France, and he’d lost a couple of times and had 3 draws against fighters the top contenders would make easy work with. But Rebrasse’s strange victory over Ndiaye put him on the boxing map when he scored a sudden knockout in the 4th round in a fight he was getting totally dominated in.

Rebrasse was getting hit with everything but the kitchen sink in this painfully one-sided fight when Ndiaye suddenly stopped fighting in the 4th round and started looking at his shoes. He dropped his gloves and stopped fighting completely. He didn’t get hit with anything, which was the weird part. Rebrasse then threw a flurry of weak-looking punches, at which point referee Howard John Foster stepped in and halted the fight. As I said, it was very, very weird how that fight went. Rebrasse was basically a tall, stork-like punching bag with zero power for 4 rounds until Nidaye stopped fighting and started looking at his shoes. The rest was history.

The Groves-Rebrasse fight is what you call careful match-making by Sauerland Events. They must obviously did their homework in picking out the weakest of the top 5 contenders, as Rebrasse hardly looks anything remotely like a top 5 contender despite the fact that he’s now ranked at #3 by the IBF and WBA because of his strange victory over Ndiaye.

Rebrasse looks more like a 2nd tier fighter in the 100 ranking range from what I can see of him, and his inflated ranking by the IBF and WBA is disturbing and more than a little confusing. I don’t see Rebrasse as top 15, and neither does Fightnews. He’s a fighter that has been given a high ranking based on his win over Ndiaye in a fight that he was getting totally dominated in.