By Scott Gilfoid: With James DeGale (14-1, 9 KO’s) choosing to vacate his EBU super middleweight title recently rather than trying to hold down to title belts at one time, the title is now up for grabs by the top European Boxing Union titles. The question now is whether George Groves (16-0, 12 KO’s) will move in to face the challenger Mouhamed Ali Ndiaye (22-1, 13 KO’s) for the vacant position or whether Groves will pass up the opportunity to fight for the vacant strap.
Groves is ranked #3 by the EBU and it makes sense that he might want to collect another strap. There hasn’t been any word whether the #2 EBU challenger Robert Stieglitz will try for the belt. Given that Stieglitz is a former WBO super middleweight champion, I think he won’t bother with this belt because it’s going backwards for him. Mikkel Kessler is ranked #1 by the EBU, but of course you’ll never see him bother fighting for that strap because his days of holding minor straps ended in 2004 when he captured the WBA World super middleweight title.
Before that, Kessler had briefly held the WBC International super middleweight title for 2 years. Kessler wasn’t into collecting a bunch of lower level belts and wasting his career trying for one strap after another. But I wonder whether Groves will be looking to capture this belt? His fellow countryman heavyweight David Price is looking to win the EBU heavyweight title in 2013, and Price will be 30-years-old by the time he fights for the belt. I’d hate to see Groves waste another six years fighting for and holding down non-world titles.
I wonder how Groves will feel fighting for a title that DeGale vacated. It might seem kind of strange to be fighting for something that DeGale saw as not worth his time keeping. Groves is a little younger than DeGale, but it still has to be weird to be fighting for something that DeGale saw as an anchor weighing him down with title defenses that he didn’t want.
DeGale wanted to take on the top contenders in the division, but he was stuck having to defend the EBU strap, and that kind of dictated the kinds of opponents he’d be facing.