By Sean McDaniel: WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch feels that British super middleweight champion James DeGale (10-0, 8 KO’s) will struggle to try and find an answer to beat Commonwealth super middleweight champion George Groves (12-0, 10 KO’s) in their important grudge fight next month on May 21st at the O2 Arena (Millenium Dome), Greenwich, London.

Froch has sparred in the past with Groves and knocked him down early in one of the sessions. Despite apparently dominating Groves, Froch still thinks Groves has what it takes to give the unbeaten former 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist DeGale problems.

Froch had this to say on the matter in an interview at boxingfutures.com: “DeGale is kidding himself if he thinks this fight is a formality… Groves, he’s got the perfect sparring partner in Andre Dirrell, he’s fast, hard to hit and comes back with good shots. It’s great preparation for someone like DeGale.”

Froch may turn out to be way off on his estimation of Groves’ ability, because right now he’s not looking comparable to DeGale. That’s not to say that DeGale won’t have problems and get marked up a little in the Groves fight, but I don’t see this as being a life and death battle where DeGale barely wins it.

I see him winning comfortably. The two fighters fought in the past while amateurs and Groves won the fight. I saw the fight and had DeGale winning by a comfortable margin. Groves, whether he’s trained by Dirrell or not, is just too hittable to compete with a fighter as good as DeGale. Groves is a decent domestic fighter but not a world class fighter like DeGale. Groves is going to find out that he’s not on the same level as DeGale next month.