By Scott Gilfoid: Well, it looks like #1 WBC George Groves (21-3, 16 KOs) can forget about a big payday fight against IBF super middleweight champion James DeGale (21-1, 14 KOs), because he says he’s looking to fight the elite in the 168lb division like Andre Dirrell, Andre Ward and Arthur Abraham rather than the 27-year-old Groves, whose career is floundering and about sink into the murky depths of the cold ocean waters after his recent 12 round decision loss to the talented WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack on September 12th last month in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The defeat for Groves was his third in his last five fights. With a record of 2-3 in his last 5 fights, Groves has been rejected as being not good enough to fight the 29-year-old DeGale.
DeGale has fight next month against former IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (32-2, 25 KOs) on November 28th at the Centre Videotron, in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.
“If he [Groves] fancies it, he can still have it, but I’m looking at the big boys,” DeGale said to skysports.com. “I’m looking at the elite. I’m looking at [Andre] Ward, [Andre] Dirrell again. I’m looking at [Arthur] Abraham. I’m looking at big fighters. I’m looking at elite fighters. I’m just looking at getting in there and fighting the best. When I’m at my best, I’m hard to beat,” DeGale said.
Depending on how you want to look at this, it could be good or bad that DeGale isn’t going to throw Groves a bone by giving him a world title fight that he arguably doesn’t deserve. It’s potentially a good thing for Groves that he’s not getting the fight against DeGale right now because the chances are high that Groves would lose that fight, and then find himself with 4 defeats in his last 6 fights.
I mean, that would put Groves on course for journeyman status, and it would likely sink his career to the bottom of the ocean where he’d never be able to resurface. It’s bad for Groves because he’ll miss out on a cash out fight against DeGale.
Even though Groves has lost three out of his last five fights, enough British boxing fans would want to see him fight that it would make enough money to live comfortably the rest of his life. Groves likely wouldn’t have to work again after a nice payday fight against DeGale.
Groves already made a nice chunk of change for his two fights against Carl Froch, and he’s probably already set for life with those two fights behind him. But the money that Groves would get for a DeGale fight, is likely more than he’ll get fighting anyone else in the sport.
It’s better for Groves to take the fight with DeGale right now, because I have a feeling that we’re going to see Groves get beaten more in the future when he starts taking on other top caliber opponents. In the super middleweight division, it’s difficult to avoid big punchers. Groves was dropped by Badou in their fight last month, and Badou isn’t a big puncher.
Christopher Rebrasse and Denis Douglin appeared to give Groves problems as well with some of the shots they were nailing him recently, and I don’t rate either of them as big punchers or even close to being big punchers. As such, Groves is going to be in a tough spot when he tries to come back from his loss to Badou, and I could definitely see Groves getting beaten more in the future.
As for DeGale, he says interested in fighting Andre Dirrell, Ward and Abraham once he gets past Bute. A rematch with Dirrell would likely play well if they staged it in the United States.
I’m not sure that DeGale’s promoter Eddie Hearn would be able to win a purse bid to get a rematch against Dirrell in the U.S., but I think Hearn could persuade Dirrell and his adviser Al Haymon to have the fight take place in the UK if the gate for the fight would be big enough over there.
They could stage the fight at the Wembley Arena and sell it out. It’s obviously not a fight big enough to put at Wembley Stadium, but it’s still good enough to sell out the Arena. Knowing Hearn, he might make it a Sky Box Office pay-per-view bout the second time around, and I could understand that. Dirrell vs. DeGale 2 would be huge in the UK.
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