By Scott Gilfoid: George Groves (16-0, 12 KO’s) will be looking to pick up James DeGale’s cast off EBU super middleweight title on March 16th against #8 WBC Mouhamed Ali Ndiaye (22-1, 13 KO’s) at the Wembley Arena in London, UK.
This is a fight that makes zero sense because Groves shouldn’t be wasting his time going after the European Boxing Union 168 lb. strap with his high ranking. Groves is ranked #1 WBO, #3 WBA, #6 WBC, #7 IBF, and that means he’ll be getting a title shot against one of the super middleweight champions in 2013, unless they’re able to bypass him.
There is logic in Groves winning the vacant EBU title against Ndiaye. At least if Groves can pick up this trinket, he’ll have something to fall back on if and when he steps it up and faces one of the super middleweight champions like Arthur Abraham, Mikkel Kessler, Carl Froch or Andre Ward, and gets whipped and smacked down. Having the EBU strap will mean that Groves can at least defend that title while licking his wounds from his loss to one of the champions.
Groves is good enough to beat the 33-year-old Ndiaye no problem, but then again the same goes for DeGale. He would have taken care of Ndiaye as well if he had held onto the title, but he didn’t like being forced to defend the belt against little known fighters because it was something that weighed him down. I guess Groves doesn’t care about all that.
I don’t see Groves beating any of the super middleweight champions any time soon. He’s not in the same league as Abraham, Froch, Kessler and definitely not Ward. I think Groves will give Abraham some problems until Abraham staggers him and then finishes him off. Abraham is way too strong for Groves in my view, and I believe that fight will go badly for Groves.
In Groves’ last fight, he defeated 43-year-old Glen Johnson by a 12 round unanimous decision last December. That was a strange fight with Groves unloading on Johnson with everything in his arsenal to try and get him out of there, and finding out quickly that he didn’t have the power to get the job done.
The funny thing is instead of getting a clue and trying to box Johnson, Groves foolishly stuck with the same plan and just kept throwing punches, resulting in him gassing out. Johnson then was able to stagger Groves on a couple of occasions. I have no doubts that if Johnson were several years younger, he would have knocked Groves out in that fight.
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