By Scott Gilfoid: Commonwealth super middleweight champion George Groves (16-0, 12 KO’s) defeated 43-year-old Glen Johnson (51-18-2, 35 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision tonight at the ExCel Arena, Dockland, London, United Kingdom. The final judges scores were 120-107, 120-107, 119-109.

Groves lacked refinement and fight smarts. He fought a really dumb fight as he was punching himself out all throughout the fight hitting Johnson’s gloves in trying to score a knockout that just wasn’t going to happen due to Groves’ lack of power.

If this had been a younger Johnson I have no doubts that he would have knocked Groves out tonight because he hurt him on a number of occasions with his big shots. However, Johnson’s problems was that he just couldn’t pull the trigger on his shots. He looked like an old fighter that sees the openings but can’t let his shots go. But it’s not like we didn’t know this because Johnson had already shown this problem in his recent losses to Carl Froch and Lucian Bute, so it’s not surprising that he showed it even more in this fight.

Groves got a bogus knockdown credited to him in the 12th when the referee couldn’t see that Johnson tripped over Groves’ foot while being punched by him. It didn’t matter in the big scheme of the things, but you don’t like to see referees blowing it so badly.

Groves tried to knock Johnson out in almost every round, throwing flurries while Johnson covered up on the ropes blocking pretty much every punch that Groves threw. Groves made big efforts to try and KO Johnson in the 1st, 6th, 7th and 12th rounds, but he wasting his time because Johnson was able to block most of Groves’ punches and he didn’t have the power to really hurt Johnson.

We learned that Groves doesn’t have the power to score knockouts against quality fighters, we learned that Groves doesn’t have the ring IQ to fight intelligently against a smart fighter like Johnson, and we learned Groves is incredibly stiff and easy to hit.

Groves said after the fight that he wants a couple of more fights like the Johnson fight and then fight for a world title next year. In other words, I guess Groves just wants someone that soaks up punishment and rarely hits him back. I don’t see the point in taking fights like this, because he’s not getting anything out of it. It’s not as if Groves was learning that he shouldn’t punch himself out like he was doing in many of the rounds trying to get a knockout that wasn’t going to happen.

I can’t see Groves beating WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham. That’s obviously the guy that he’ll be steered towards because they’re not going to put Groves in with Carl Froch, Mikkel Kessler or Andre Ward because he’ll never beat any of those guys, ever. The talent level between them and Groves is like a mountain.

Groves is better off going after Abraham and hoping he can get lucky and get a decision in Germany. Do I think it’ll happen? Not in this lifetime, but Groves will at least get some good experience.

Other boxing results on the card

Billy Joe Saunders UD 12 Nick Blackwell
Liam Smith UD 12 Steve O’Meara
Bradley Skeete TKO 4 Chas Symonds
Frank Buglioni RTD 2 Ciaran Healy