By Scott Gilfoid: It’s to believe #2 WBA George Groves (25-3, 18 KOs) will be the favorite when he steps inside the ring to face #1 Fedor Chudinov (14-1, 10 KOs) this Saturday night for the WBA Super World super middleweight title in the co-feature bout on the Kell Brook vs. Errol Spence Jr. card at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, England.
Groves has failed 3 times in the past in fighting for world titles, and he’s getting another chance despite not having beaten any super talents in his last four outings. The excitement that used to surround Groves’ fights seems to be gone. Compared to the build-up to Groves’ fights in the past against Carl Froch, James DeGale and Badou Jack, things have relatively quiet with not much being said about the Groves-Chudinov fight.
In looking at social media, I’m hearing stuff like, ‘I sure hope Groves wins. He’s got his best chance in facing Chudinov.’ Despite Chudinov being a former world champion, he’s badly flawed in a lot of areas in his game starting with his complete absence of hand speed. However, Gennady “GGG” Golovkin isn’t fast of hand either, and he does quite well. Golovkin has huge punching power in both hands and excellent boxing skills.
Chudinov has good power, but he’s not someone with Golovkin-like power for the 168 pound division, and he’s not as skilled. I rate Chudinov’s hand speed to be a notch below that of Golovkin’s. However, Chudinov has more than enough power to knock Groves into the next galaxy if he connects with one of his heavy shots.
We’ve seen in the past that it doesn’t major power to stun Groves. He was hurt by Carl Froch, Badou Jack, and Kenny Anderson in the past. Chudinov hits at least as hard as those three guys. The only difference I can see is Chudinov’s punches are tad bit slower. That means Groves can at least brace for them when Chudinov lets his hands go. That could help Groves take a fair amount of them without getting knocked out. But as we saw with George Foreman, slower and powerful fighters are still very dangerous. Groves cannot afford to let Chudinov hit him too often on Saturday night without risking suffering ANOTHER knockout loss.
“People were saying ‘you were a good fighter but you aren’t any more’ and we all wish people would give us fighters more credit, but I do feel all the good aspects I’ve got are working well,” said Groves to skysports.com.
I don’t see Groves as having lost anything from the fighter he was in the past. Groves is only 29. He can still punch with a lot of power. I think what has a lot of boxing fans looking past Groves is his failures when he’s stepped up a level against better fighters. They view Groves as someone that hasn’t shown to have world championship level talent.
Groves might beat Chudinov on Saturday night, but he’s not facing the best at 168 for that fight. Groves is being put in an ideal situation to win a world title the easy way. That’s why if Groves can’t beat Chudinov to win the WBA strap, then he’s really bad off, because is a fight that he SHOULD be able to win.
There are much better fighters in the super middleweight division than Chudinov in my view. Groves getting a fight against Chudinov is like having a baseball lobbed to him underhand so that he can hit out of the park for a homerun. We’ve already seen that Groves can’t hit the fastball or the curve in facing better opposition. So now Groves is facing the equivalent of a pitcher throwing underhand to him so he connects.
It’s kind of sad, really. You can argue that the World Boxing Association could have done a better in having Groves fight someone better than Chudinov like Callum Smith, Anthony Dirrell or Andre Dirrell. Those guys would make it interesting. If Groves could beat one of them, it tell you something about his talent. But you won’t learn anything on Saturday if Groves beats Chudinov, because it’s a beatable opponent. Chudinov lost his last fight against Felix Sturm last year in February 2016.
Chudinov will have been out of action for 15 months by the time that he fights this Saturday night against Groves. Just why the WBA hasn’t stripped Chudinov of his No.1 ranking with their organization is an honest question. We saw the World Boxing Council drop Amir Khan from their top 15 rankings this past week after he’d been out of the ring for 12 months. Khan was ranked No.2 by the WBC. So why is Chudinov still rated No.1 by the WBA despite being out of the ring for OVER 1 year?
”This is the move up the WBA and it’s ended up with Chudinov, at home, and it is the best opportunity to win the world title,” said Groves.
This is the best opportunity for Groves to become the WBA Super World 168 pound champion on Saturday night if he can beat the 29-year-old Chudinov. It’s a beatable fighter for Groves. Chudinov has been out of action for a long time, and he looked terrible in his last fight against Sturm in losing a 12 round decision last year in February in Germany. Boxing News 24 didn’t agree with the judges’ scoring of the Chudinov vs. Sturm fight.
We had Chudinov winning a comfortable decision by 9 rounds to 3 over Sturm. The fight was in Germany, and Chudinov didn’t pitch a shutout. I wasn’t surprised that he lost. Chudinov was the visiting fighter, and he looked very average at times. Sturm looked far worse, but he was the home guy in the fight.
Here are the 5 keys to victory for Groves against Chudinov:
– Outwork Chudinov: In Chudinov’s fight with Frank Buglioni, he had problems when the British fighter was letting his hands go and throwing a lot of shots. Chudinov also struggled against Sturm in the rematch when the German fighter was staying busy by outworking him. Chudinov covers up when his opponents have a high work rate. Chudinov doesn’t punch with them them way that good fighters do.
– Throw fast shots. Chudinov doesn’t seem to do well when getting hit with fast shots. Groves might be able to take advantage of Chudinov’s slow speed.
– Use sustained flurries. Chudinov was almost knocked out by Buglioni in their fight in September 2015. Buglioni let his hands go with a flurry of shots at the end of the 6th. The problem was Buglioni waited until the closing seconds of the round to throw the flurry. He ended up hitting Chudinov after the bell had sounded in the process of knocking him down. This resulted in Buglioni being docked a point by the referee.
– Get out of range when not punching
– Stay off the ropes. Groves was blasted to eternity by Froch in their rematch after he made the mistake of leaning against the ropes instead of staying in the center of the ring. Groves can’t afford to make that same mistake against a puncher like Chudinov, because he’ll take him out quickly if he gets him trapped and helpless.
Groves has the talent to beat Chudinov, but I still see this as a 50-50 fight simply because of the Russian fighter’ power, and Groves’ poor stamina and chin problem. Yeah, the fight can be won by Groves if he does everything correctly, but we just don’t know what we’re going to get with him. Groves brings drama to the ring each time he fights. He’s never truly dominant even when facing fodder opposition like in his last few fights. Groves was getting lit up by his last opponent Eduard Gutknecht and Martin Murray before that. In a side note, Gutknecht was tragically hurt against Groves and his career is now over after their fight last November. Boxing is a dangerous sport, and it’s important that some one-sided fights should be stopped earlier rather than later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–5J1G5yxlg