Groves needs to throw more punches to beat Stieglitz

By Boxing News - 04/02/2012 - Comments

By William Mackay: #3 WBO George Groves (14-0, 11 KO’s) will be fighting for the title against WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz (41-2, 23 KO’s) on May 5th at the Meesehalle, in Erfurt, Germany. This is the 24-year-old Groves’ big chance to try and win a world title.

This is really the only chance Groves would have at winning a world title because there is no way he would have a chance to beat WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward or IBF champ Lucian Bute and it’s doubtful that his promoter would want to see Groves in there with either of those guys because of how one-sided it would be. But Stieglitz is at least somewhat beatable, and that’s the thing.

However, for Groves to do well against Stieglitz, he’s going to have to change his fighting style to be a lot more busier than he’s been in the past. Groves has had too much time with trainer Adam Booth and he’s noted for teaching his fighters to do a lot of circling of the ring and to use lot of feints. The problem with that fighting style is that the fighters end up throwing few punches because they’re too busy circling the ring and using all kings of herky-jerk feints to get their opponents out of position.

That kind of style works against guys that don’t throw many punches and against fighters that don’t have much of a chin. But against a fighter that routinely throws as many as 80 punches per round like Stieglitz, it’s not going to be enough for Groves to win this fight. He’s fighting in Germany and will be the visiting fighter. They’re not going to give him rounds by doing laps around the ring looking to fake Stieglitz out of position so that Groves can land a pot shot before he starts running again. He’ll need to actually throw punches and a lot of them for him to get the decision.



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