By Scott Gilfoid: Sauerland Events, the promoters for #1 WBC, #4 IBF, #4 WBA super middleweight contender George Groves (21-2, 16 KOs), are going to need to start looking for another stay busy fight for Groves to keep him active while he waits for his eventual title shot against WBC super middleweight champion Anthony Dirrell (29-0-1, 22 KOs) in the autumn.
The World Boxing Council announced this week that Dirrell, 29, can have a voluntary title defense of his WBC title in April before he defends his strap against Groves. That’s something that Groves can’t get around unless Dirrell decides to forget about the voluntary defense and instead face Groves next.
I doubt that Dirrell will do that unless Groves’ promoters make it worthwhile for him to take that fight next in terms of offering him a ton of cash.
At this point another tune-up bout for Groves might not be so bad. I mean, Groves looked God awful in his last fight against little known Denis Douglin last November, and Groves looked equally terrible against Christopher Rebrasse last September in their WBC 168 pound eliminator bout.
Groves had a chance to face James DeGale, but it would have been just a regular scrap without any titles being on the line. Groves didn’t seem too eager to take that fight, as he wants to fight for the WBC 168 pound title. But now that Groves is going to have to wait potentially until September, October or December, he might have been better off taking the DeGale fight.
DeGale doesn’t have the power, hand speed or the accuracy that Anthony Dirrell has. You would have to think that Groves would have a decent chance of beating DeGale if they were to fight each other right now.
Groves doesn’t match-up well against Dirrell at all, and that fight has knockout written all over it for Dirrell to beat Groves.
“Mandatory contender George Groves won the WBC silver championship and made a successful voluntary defense last November while Dirrell had been granted a voluntary defense before making the mandatory defense of the division,” the WBC said in their statement. “George Groves’ team submitted an appeal rejecting Dirrell to make a voluntary defense requesting the mandatory fight to take place immediately. After a thorough revision and a voting process by the WBC Board of Governors the ruling has confirmed the following: To permit Anthony Dirrell to make the proposed voluntary defense in the month of April with the winner committed to fight mandatory challenger George Groves without any intervening bouts.”
DeGale will now be facing Anthony Dirrell’s talented brother Andre Dirrell for the vacant IBF 168 pound title, and that’s even worse match-up for DeGale than the Groves vs. Anthony Dirrell fight is for Groves.
Sauerland needs to find some other obscure opponent for Groves to fight in a nice little stay busy fight to keep him busy and winning while he waits on Dirrell. It can’t be someone too good because Groves might lose if they put him in with a decent contender. It’s already kind of strange that the WBC let Groves fight in a WBC eliminator bout against the little known Rebrasse after Groves had been knocked out two consecutive times by Froch.
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