By Scott Gilfoid: Undefeated George Groves (14-0, 11 KO’s) is getting a title shot against WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz (41-2, 23 KO’s) on the back of Groves’ win over Paul Smith last November when Smith badly fractured his right hand in the 1st after connecting with an explosive right hand to the head of Groves. Stieglitz I think is really going to give Groves a beating on May 5th when they meet up at the Messehalle, in Erfurt, Germany.

Stieglitz isn’t a confused James DeGale, who looked like he was in a daze for the first four rounds trying to decide whether he wanted to fight or just stand there and watching Groves run laps around the ring. Stieglitz will be throwing a lot of punches, cutting off the ring and forcing Groves to fight. Stieglitz has obviously seen video of most of Groves’ fights by now and likely knows that Groves moves a lot and spends considerable amount of time each round using feints to try and get his opponent off guard before he throws a shot.

Feints work against guys that aren’t throwing a lot of punches, but against fighters that are firing shot after shot like Stieglitz typically does, it’s completely useless. It’s like having a tail that you don’t need. This is why DeGale dominated Groves after the fourth round when he finally took the fight to Groves and started throwing a lot of punches. Groves still continued to use the feints in between getting tagged in the head, but he looked silly because it was no longer serving any purpose because DeGale was ignoring them and just lighting into Groves.

This is what Stieglitz will be doing. He won’t waste any time looking at Groves play games by trying to fake him out of position. Instead, he’ll go right after him, cut off the ring and force him to fight in a one-on-one battle. That’s a fight that will favor Stieglitz because he’s got the better power, better work rate and the better assortment of punches. With the exception of his fight against DeGale, Groves has done well at the domestic level but against a world class fighter like Stieglitz, Groves will have a ton of problems and it’s going to go badly for him.