By William Mackay: British super middleweight champion George Groves (14-0, 11 KO’s) has reportedly suffered an injury during training camp for his May 5th fight against WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz. The injury is bad enough to where the 24-year-old Groves had to pull out of the fight.
According to boxing news from sportinglife.com, Groves believes that the injury will only be a short term thing, but the fight is off none the less.
Groves said this to sportlife.com via Hayemaker Boxing “We tried to work through it, but soon realized I wouldn’t be able to perform the training needed to prepare for this fight.”
Things have been going bad for Groves as of late. He pulled out of a fight with Kenny Anderson a month ago due to a back injury, and now he’s got this one. He’s saying he’ll be quickly healed but can you believe that when he’s already pulled out of two fights? Groves still thinks he’s going to get a title shot, but it’s going to be a little while now unless Stieglitz is interested in waiting for him to heal, which I seriously doubt. Groves has a title defense of his British strap coming up on June 30th against Anderson, and it looks like that fight will take place unless his injury lingers on and on. With whatever kind of injury Groves is suffering, he may need more time off so he avoid this thing flaring up each time he tries to get into some serious training.
Right now you’d have to see it as a risk to sign on for a fight against Groves due to him pulling out of his last fight. If your a promoter, you might want to have a back up opponent in mind for your fighter to take on as a replacement if Groves comes up lame with another injury.
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Rakhim Chakhkiev to fight on April 21
2008 Olympic heavyweight gold medalist for Russia Rakhim Chakhkiev (12-0, 9 KO’s) is scheduled to fight on April 21st against an opponent still to be determined at the Sport and Congress Center, Schwerin, Mecklenburg Vorpommem, Germany. Chakhkiev will be fighting on the undercard of the Juergen Braehmer vs. Vikapita Meroro card.
Chakhkiev, 29, last fought in January, defeating Alexander Kotlobay by a 10 round unanimous decision in a lopsided fight.
Ranked #7 WBC, #12 WBO, Chakhkiev is trying to move up to get a title shot against one of the champions. Chakhkiev is interested in facing WBO champ Marco Huck, but he may have to get ranked a little higher before he can force the fight. Thus far, Huck has been picking guys around him but skipping over him.