Groves better off skipping Dirrell fight for DeGale

By Boxing News - 12/28/2014 - Comments

groves566By Scott Gilfoid: #1 WBC George Groves (21-2, 16 KOs) recently earned a shot against WBC super middleweight champion Anthony Dirrell (27-0-1, 22 KOs) by beating little known EBU European 168lb champion Christopher Rebrasse by a 12 round decision last September.

The World Boxing Council made the Groves-Rebrasse fight a WBC super middleweight title eliminator despite the fact that Groves was coming off of two consecutive knockout losses to Carl Froch.

That was a very strange move on the WBC’s part to make the Groves-Rebrasse fight a title eliminator given Groves two failed fights against Froch.

Groves will now be fighting Dirrell for his WBC title in 2015 at some point after Dirrell takes an optional defense against an opponent still to be determined. However, Groves may be better off facing James DeGale (20-1, 14 KOs) in a rematch rather than taking a fight against Dirrell that he’ll likely lose.

If Groves faces DeGale, he can get a big payday if they stick the fight in the Wembley Arena. Obviously, a DeGale vs. Groves rematch isn’t a big enough fight to stick it in the Wembley Stadium, but it is big enough to put it in an arena. I figure that Groves will make better money fighting DeGale than he would Dirrell.

Plus, it’s a fight that Groves has a much better chance of winning due to DeGale’s flat-footed fighting style. Groves beat DeGale by a 12 round decision, albeit in a fight that many boxing fans thought that Groves lost in 2011. Groves could luck out and get another controversial decision.

The crowd would likely be in his favor again, so if the rounds or close, I would expect Groves to get them every time. But if Groves fights Dirrell, he’ll bring the judges with him with his two gloves, and it’s likely that the judges would be mere spectators in a fight of that kind.

Dirrell hits too hard, he’s too accurate, and too fast for Groves. If a slow fighter like Froch was able to knock Groves out twice, then Dirrell will be able to accomplish that task much faster because of his speed and accuracy.

Groves needs to approach his next fight in a logical manner. He can either take what will likely be less money to fight Dirrell and then probably get knocked out, or he can take on DeGale in a rematch and make bigger cash and have a decent chance of winning a close decision. I think the smart move is for Groves to forget about Dirrell and take the DeGale fight.

A loss to Dirrell will pretty much send Groves back down to domestic level, because there would really be nowhere for him to go after that. Dirrell’s brother Andre Dirrell is ready to move in once Froch vacates his IBF and WBA titles, and that would be an even worse mismatch than a fight between Anthony Dirrell and Groves in my view.

Sure, Groves could face Andre for the titles, but I don’t see how the IBF and WBA will let that happen if Groves gets knocked out by Anthony Dirrell in 2015. I mean, that would be three knockout losses in his last four fights, and I don’t see the IBF and WBA doing what the WBC did in letting Groves fight in another eliminator or letting him fight for a world title.



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