By Scott Gilfoid: Commonwealth super middleweight champion George Groves (16-0, 12 KO’s) should forget about trying to fight for a world title in 2013, because the way he looked tonight in defeating 43-year-old Glen Johnson (51-18-2, 35 KO’s) by a 12 round decision showed me that Groves isn’t ready for the likes of champions Arthur Abraham, Mikkel Kessler, Andre Ward and Carl Froch.

Some of Groves’ problems are just flat out lack of athleticism, flexibility and power. Sadly, I don’t see Groves being able to change any of those areas, but he can definitely learn to fight smarter and work with the limited skills that he has.

Tonight, Groves went all out in a kind of a mindless manner in throwing a ton of punches in beating Johnson at the ExCel Arena in London, England. Groves was loading up on everything he had on his shots and flurrying on Johnson as if he thought he could knock him out in every round. It was a stupid, stupid fight plan, because all Groves was doing was tiring himself out and leaving himself open for Johnson’s big shots.

Groves’ trainer Adam Booth should have been telling Groves to back off with that game plan when it was painfully obvious that he wasn’t going to be able to knock Johnson out, but instead we saw the same thing from Groves round after round after round. The thing is after the fight Groves was talking about how he was being slick and boxing, but that’s not what he was doing.

Sure, Groves moved a little bit in every round, but he was mostly standing right in front of Johnson, either throwing nonstop punches or eating leather. I saw Groves get wobbled once in the fight and that makes me wonder whether the guy has a problem taking shots, because Johnson really didn’t throw a lot of punches in the fight, yet he was able to wobble Groves on a number of occasions.

I can only imagine what Abraham, Kessler, Froch and Ward would do to Groves if they were in there with him instead of Johnson. Those guys throw lots of punches, and they would be hitting Groves all night long. I really don’t see Groves being able to take shots from those guys.

Groves showed no defense in this fight, but then again I’ve never seen him show any defense in any of his other fights other than when he briefly moves around the ring and uses head movement when he’s way out of range. I still don’t understand why Groves does that. Why move your head when you’re 20 feet away from your opponent? It looks silly as heck when he does that.

This performance against Johnson tonight tells me that Groves simply doesn’t have what it takes to beat the best in the division. Yes, he can beat a 43-year-old Johnson, and I guess if his promoter keeps feeding him Johnson type opponents, Groves will be okay. There’s a lot of room for improvement in his game, and it’s unclear what Groves would look like if he were fighting with discipline and a good game plan, but we didn’t see that tonight and in any of his recent fights either. As such, I’m expecting Groves to continue to fight like this and if that’s the case he’ll never beat the top fighters in the division.

Right now, I see Groves as domestic level/gate keeper type opponent. I think he might be able to get a hold of one of the interim world titles, but unless he’s able to be matched carefully, I don’t see him holding onto a empty strap like that for long. He’s got to improve if he wants to beat the best, and maybe he should think about dumping Booth.