By Scott Gilfoid: Commonwealth super middleweight champion George Groves (15-0, 12 KO’s) made weight today for his fight on Saturday night against the much more experienced Glen Johnson (51-17-2, 35 KO’s) at the ExCel Arena, Dockland, in London, United Kingdom. Groves, 24, weighed in at 166.9 pounds. Johnson, 43, weighed 167.5 lbs and looked in sensational shape.

You’ve got to like Johnson’s chances in this fight because he’s still fighting on a high level, and Groves was exposed in his fight with James DeGale last year in May, and he hasn’t improved much since then. The only thing that I do worry about Johnson is the weight.

Johnson has been a light heavyweight for almost his entire career and he looked kind of weight drained to me recently in his losses to Carl Froch, Lucian Bute and his highly controversial decision loss to Andrzej Fonfara last July. Johnson was much stronger at 175, and I think the stress of having to drain down from above 180 has got to be really tough for him to do. That’s the only thing that I can see Johnson potentially having a problem with. If he’s not drained then he wins this fight unless we get some weird judging.

Groves is really, really short on experience. His best two opponents of his career are DeGale and Kenny Anderson, and he looked mediocre in both fights. Anderson knocked Groves down; while DeGale lost a fight that I felt he should have won. In his recent fights, Groves has been matched weakly in wins over Paul Smith and Francisco Sierra. Groves will be making a huge step up in class against Johnson tomorrow night and I expect it to be too big of a jump up.

As far as the undercard goes there’s not much here. Billy Joe Saunders has a mismatch with Nick Blackwell, and I don’t care about the rest of the card to be honest.

The full weights on the card:

Groves, Johnson make weight
George Groves 166.9 – Glen Johnson 167.5
Billy Joe Saunders 159.1 – Nick Blackwell 158.5
Tony Conquest 198 – Neil Dawson 198.1
Steve O’Meara 152.75 – Liam Smith 153.
Chas Symonds 146.5 – Bradley Skeete 146.5