Groves: I’ve got a plan to beat Badou Jack

By Boxing News - 08/26/2015 - Comments

groves5By Scott Gilfoid: #1 WBC challenger George Groves (21-2, 16 KOs) has failed twice in the past when he’s challenged for a world title in stoppage losses to former IBF/WBA 168kb champion Carl Froch in the past, and now Groves is on the verge of challenging for another world title against WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack (19-1-1, 12 KOs) on September 12th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Groves says he’s got a specific game plan for the Badou Jack fight that will bring him a victory in this pay-per-view card on Showtime. Groves, 27, doesn’t say what the plan is, but it’s likely something to do with him using a lot of movement to try and stay clear of him.

Jack likes to walk his opponents down to punish them with hard power shots to the head and body. That’s not a good style match-up for Groves, who tends to wear down in his fights in the second half of the action. Jack did a good job of wearing down the talented former WBC 168lb champion Anthony Dirrell in their fight last April. The combination of the pressure and the hard shots did a number on Dirrell.

“Floyd Mayweather’s team are winners but he’s not going to be a winner on fight night,” Groves said to skysports.com. “As good as he is we know we’ve got a plan to beat him. He does everything well but nothing exceptional and I feel I’m better than him in all departments. Hopefully I’ll win over a few American fans in the process.”

I’m not surprised that Groves is bragging about having a game plan that he thinks will enable him to beat Jack, but I don’t see it happening. Groves is good at bigging himself up in the media, but we saw what happened to him when he fell apart in his two biggest fights of his career against Froch. Things fell apart for Groves with Froch stopping him both times.

Badou Jack, who comes from Sweden, isn’t the greatest fighter in the boxing world, but he’s a good blue collar fighter who will do all he can to get the most out of his ability on September 12th. This means we’re probably going to see him walk Groves down round after round, punishing him with head and body shots until we see Groves drop for the 10 count.

“Defensively he’s very good and he punches very well but there are gaps,” Groves said. “I’ve boxed on so many away cards and I never plan on letting the opponent hear the final bell; the same goes for Jack.”

Groves’ biggest problem, besides his chin, is his stamina. He doesn’t have the stamina to fight hard for a full 12 round fight without wearing down and struggling. We even saw Groves gassing out against the light hitting Christopher Rebrasse in their fight last year.

Groves won the fight by a 12 round decision, but he sure as heck didn’t look good in the fight. He looked terrible. If Rebrasse had any kind of punching power at all, he likely would have knocked Groves out in short order in the fight. In Groves’ last fight against Denis Douglin, he was getting nailed again and again, and was quite fortunate that he wasn’t facing a talented fighter because he would have been in trouble in that fight.



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