By Scott Gilfoid: George Groves says he wants to move on to “Bigger and better things” after winning a close but controversial 12 round majority decision over James DeGale last weekend, but unfortunately the fight was so close – according to the judges – that the two really need to fight again to have a clear cut winner. I personally had DeGale winning the fight by four rounds. However, two of the judges scored it for Groves by the scores 115-114 and 115-114.

How the judges could score the fight to Groves, the challenger, is the odd part. DeGale was the aggressor the entire fight, landed the harder blows and finished the fight stronger by sweeping most of the last six rounds of the fight, yet two of the judges scored it for Groves. That is plain weird and it goes against the normal situation for champions and challengers.

Groves fought like he was the champion facing the challenger by running around the ring all night long while DeGale took the fight to him and landed punishing blows. How in the world can a challenger win a title by running from the champion? That’s not how you win and I think the scores were ridiculous for this fight. It was like the judges were watching another fight altogether.

Whether Groves or his promoter David Haye wants the DeGale rematch or not, they almost have to. This wasn’t the kind of win where you can move on and claim victory. This wasn’t a clear cut win. It was pretty much a draw in terms of the scoring and it wasn’t a good performance from Groves with all his running. He’s got to go back to the drawing board and try again if he’s smart. You don’t walk away form a fight like this and start crowing about fighting better fighters when you just barely nicked it on two of the judges’ scorecards. How can Groves be talking about fighting “Better” guys when he couldn’t even beat DeGale without controversy?

Wouldn’t you think that those better fighters that Groves is talking about would be too good for him? Of course, if that was just lip service from Groves, then, yeah, I can understand that. In other words, you want to go and milk the two domestic level titles against weak opposition below the talent level of DeGale. Because if you beat him without controversy, then it suggests that Groves doesn’t have the talent to beat better fighters than him.