By Scott Gilfoid: The British Boxing Board of Control has ruled against ordering an immediate rematch between British super middleweight champion James DeGale (10-1, 8 KO’s) after he lost a controversial 12 round majority decision to challenger George Groves (13-0, 10 KO’s) last Saturday night in London, England.

Groves fought most of the fight on the run and appeared to lose pretty much all of the last seven rounds of the fight with his running and inability to stand and trade with the more powerful DeGale. However, the more popular Groves, who was cheered madly by the mostly partisan crowd as he entered the ring and throughout the fight, was given the decision by the scores of 115-115, 115-114, and 115-114. I had DeGale easily winning the fight by at least four rounds due to Groves’ poor showing in the last seven rounds and because of all the movement he was using without being able to come forward to stand in with DeGale.

The secretary of the BBBofC, Robert Smith, had this to say about the DeGale vs. Groves fight in an article at the telegraph.co.uk: “An immediate rematch is out of the question. The board will not be ordering a rematch. There was noting controversial or contentious about it. No one broke any rules. Why would the board order a rematch? It was simply a very close fight, and there was nothing wrong with the decision.”

There is, folks. Smith isn’t going to order a rematch and Groves and his promoter David Haye have already said they have no interest in going after a rematch with DeGale, even though it was a horrible fight and decision that many boxing fans aren’t happy with. They’re going to take this decision and live with it, as if it proves anything. It doesn’t. DeGale was the better fighter last Saturday, but the judges didn’t get the scores right.

DeGale needs to move on and perhaps leave the UK and come to the United States where fans will fully appreciate him. I can see DeGale being a pay per view star in the U.S within no time flat. He doesn’t need to be a big fish in a small pond in the UK and not feel the love from fans. Let them support Groves if that’s who they see as the better fighter. We’ll see who the better fighter is in terms of accomplishment in the future when DeGale moves on and captures a world title while Groves will likely languish at the domestic and/or European level. There’s no point in DeGale trying to get a rematch with Groves, because it’s pretty clear Groves doesn’t want the fight. It doesn’t matter that a DeGale-Groves rematch would make more money for Groves than any other fight he can make in his next bout. Groves still won’t take the fight even with the bigger money there. That seems weird to me, because why would Groves turn down a big money rematch with DeGale to take smaller money against a lesser fighter? That tells me that Groves doesn’t want to risk getting beaten.