By Scott Gilfoid: As expected, WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack (19-1-1, 12 KOs) and challenger George Groves (21-2, 16 KOs) have been added to help beef up the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Andre Berto card on September 12th on Showtime pay-per-view from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Jack vs. Groves fight is one that you can argue shouldn’t even be happening. I mean, Groves got whipped twice by former IBF/WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch not long ago in 2013 and 2014. Like all fighters that get knocked out twice in a row, Groves should have gone to the back of the line and worked his way back to a position where he could fight for a world title.
In this case, the World Boxing Council rewarded Groves for his failures against Froch by letting him fight in a WBC eliminator against Christopher Rebrasse. It was perfect for Groves. He didn’t have to win to get to the WBC eliminator, and he also didn’t fight anyone dangerous in the eliminator like Andre Dirrell. Talk about getting a lucky break.
“I’m very excited, and I’m preparing for the toughest fight of my career against George Groves,” Jack said via ESPN.com. “I always go into a fight with an underdog mentality, even as champion. It feels great to be defending in my adopted hometown of Las Vegas. My promoter, Floyd Mayweather, has had my back during the ups and downs of my career, and I want to make him and the whole Mayweather Promotions team proud on Sept. 12.”
Jack will need to put a lot of pressure on Groves in order to wear him down and get the knockout. If Jack fails to pressure Groves, then he’ll likely run around on the outside and pot shot like he was attempting to do in his second fight against Froch in May of 2014. Froch finally corned Groves and knocked him out with a scorching right hand to the head.
That’s what Jack will need to do if he wants to get the win over Groves, because if he doesn’t put pressure on him the entire three minutes of every round, Groves will definitely look to pot shot with single punches and do a lot of resting. Groves has to rest because when he doesn’t get regular rest breaks in each round, he quickly gasses out like an old tired clock. Jack needs to keep backing Groves up, nailing him with shots, and not letting him get a moment of rest.
Jack recently won the WBC super middleweight title last April when he was able to beat Anthony Dirrell by a 12 round decision to capture the belt. It wasn’t an easy fight for Jack because he was facing a very talented fighter in Anthony Dirrell, but he was able to wear him down with a lot of pressure to get the victory.
“I have challenged for world titles, and I have sold out stadiums, but my true childhood dream of winning a world title is yet to be fulfilled,” Groves said. “I get that chance on the Las Vegas Strip — the crème de la crème for any fighter on the planet. I cannot wait to achieve my goal and become world champion.”
Groves is really getting carried away with his vision thing in dreaming of becoming a world champion. I think it’s possible for Groves to become a world champion one of these days if he picks up one of the WBA’s multiple belts, but I don’t see it happening in Groves beating Badou Jack. I hate to say it, but I see Groves losing this fight and taking a minor beating along the way. The positive that will come out of his loss is that he’ll learn something from the fight that he’ll be able to use in future bouts.
“Badou Jack isn’t ‘bad’ enough to halt my dream,” Groves said. “His WBC belt is all that is on my mind each and every waking moment. We have studied Jack. We are prepared for his strengths and ready to expose his weaknesses. Vegas is my second home, and I can’t wait to come back with a bang.”
I hope Groves has a good backup plan to fall back on when things don’t work out for him in this fight. At least after Groves loses the fight, he can start looking at going in another direction towards another world title. I mean, I don’t think that the WBC is going to automatically order Groves to fight in another one of their title eliminators if he loses this fight, because it’ll look really bad with the WBC giving Groves chance after chance following his losses.
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