By Scott Gilfoid: British and Commonwealth super middleweight champion George Groves (13-0, 10 KO’s) is scheduled to fight former British champion Paul Smith (30-2, 16 KO’s) on December 17th at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England.

Smith has to get by his next opponent this Saturday against 38-year-old Paul Samuels (21-9-2, 12 KO’s) at the Olympia in Liverpool. Samuels has lost eight out of his last thirteen fights. I think it’s safe to say that Smith will win this fight and move onto the Groves bout in December.

For the 23-year-old Groves, this will be the first time he’s fought since beating James DeGale by a controversial 12 round majority decision last May. Groves has been sitting idle all this time, and it was only after signing with Frank Warren Promotions that the wheels in his career have started moving again. The Smith-Groves fight will be interesting in that we can see how Groves does against a fighter that DeGale easily handled last December.

DeGale stopped Smith in the 9th round in a fight that was never competitive for an instant. Of course, this was DeGale, who has much better offensive skills than Groves, so it’s hard to say that Groves will be able to do as well against Smith. We could even possibly see Smith winning by a decision unless Groves decides to run.

Groves isn’t much of a puncher, and if he goes right at Smith, he’s going to be taking a big risk. Smith has power and a lot of weapons to use against a young want to be puncher like Groves. I think Groves will stick to his hit and move technique that he developed while sparring with American talent Andre Dirrell in the United States. While Dirrell is able to mix it up a lot more because of his amazing hand speed, cat-like reflexes and excellent power, Groves is more of a hit and run guy. He wins rounds this way, but it’s not a style that works when facing a good pressure fighter. Smith will have to change his game to win this fight. He’ll have to apply a lot of pressure and land hard shots to force Groves to fight him one on one instead of running.

I like this fight. This is going to be a good one to gauge where Groves is at. Perhaps if he can get some more training with Dirrell, he’ll improve enough to look good against Smith. If not, I think he may have to labor to a decision.