By Scott Gilfoid: You know the old saying “When you snooze you lose.” This has never been more true than with poor #3 WBO super middleweight contender George Groves (14-0, 11 KO’s), who was supposed to be fighting for a world title next month against WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz (41-2, 23 KO’s) on May 5th at the Messehalle, in Erfurt, Thüringen, Germany. Unfortunately for Groves, he suffered an injury to his nose and can’t make the fight.
With Groves’ chance at a title now up in smoke, the World Boxing Organization has replaced him as the mandatory challenger for Stieglitz and has inserted former IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (34-3, 27 KO’s) into the position. That’s got to hurt Groves, because it effectively means he’s going to have to wait around for a while until Abraham gets his shot against Stieglitz. The thing is Groves may have to wait until later on in the year, if then, to get that shot, because Stieglitz likely will be making an optional defense of his WBO title next month against a lower ranked contender before giving the 32-year-old Abraham his shot in August or September.
Abraham, #2 WBO, is a pretty horrible opponent to be getting a shot at a title given that he recently lost three out of his four fights in the Super Six tournament. However, he’s picked up a couple of easy wins against weaker opposition in Pablo Oscar Natalio Farias and Piotr Wilczewski at super middleweight. Can Abraham beat Stieglitz? Probably not unless he knocks him out, which is a possibility because Stieglitz has been stopped before. I just don’t think Abraham is good enough to beat Stieglitz by a decision because he doesn’t throw enough punches and tends to cover up in his clam-shell defense and waste two-thirds of every round just doing nothing. But in Germany Abraham is well likely, so can probably still win the fight even if he gets totally dominated.
As for Groves, he’s going to have to wait around and his lick his wounds for while until Stieglitz is clear to fight him. Hopefully Groves doesn’t get injured again when that time comes because he would then likely lose his mandatory challenger position again and end up waiting ions for another shot. That’s the thing with injuries. Once a fighter gets an injury sometimes they linger on and on and on. Who knows when Groves will be able to fight without suffering setback after setback. Hopefully this probably doesn’t wipe an entire year or more of his career because that would really his chances of doing anything at 168, if he even has a chance.
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