By Scott Gilfoid: Commonwealth super middleweight champion George Groves (16-0, 12 KO’s) will be facing #8 WBC Mouhamed Ali Ndiaye (22-1, 13 KO’s) for James DeGale’s recently vacated EBU super middleweight title in a still determined time and venue. Groves’ promoter Frank Warren reportedly won the purse bid for the fight.
It’s a fight that is really hard to understand because Groves is ranked #1 WBO, #5 WBA, #6 WBC, #7 IBF and there’s really no point at all in facing the little known 33-year-old Ndiaye for the European Boxing Union strap when Groves is already going to be getting a title shot against World Boxing Organization super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham in 2013.
Why is Groves going out of his way to fight for the lesser EBU strap against a contender that is arguably a couple steps back from his last fight against 43-year-old Glen Johnson? Ndiaye would take a pounding if he fought Johnson, and I don’t see the logic in taking a step backwards at this point.
Instead of fighting for DeGale’s discarded strap, Groves should be looking to take on a better fighter than Ndiaye like Andre Dirrell, Anthony Dirrell or Thomas Oosthizen. I’d like to see what would happen to Groves if he stepped inside the ring with one of those two. I think it would be bad.
Golden Boy Promotions wins purse bid for Erislandy Lara vs. Vanes Martirosyan rematch
Golden Boy Promotions reportedly won the purse bid to put on the Erislandy Lara – Vanes Martirorysan rematch. Golden Boy beat Top Rank in the bidding with a $410,000. Top Rank bid only $62,000. Lara and Martirosyan fought to a 9th round technical decision last November in a painfully boring fight. The bout ended in the 9th round when Martirosyan was cut badly over his left eye from a head-butt with Lara.
The fight then went to the scorecards. Martirosyan was pretty lucky that the fight was halted at the time because Lara was starting to take control of the fight and it looked like he would have won had it gone another three rounds. The winner of the Lara-Martirosyan fight will become the mandatory challenger to WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. If they’re lucky they may get a shot against Canelo by 2014, but I definitely don’t see Canelo fighting the winner of the Lara-Martirosyan fight this year, no way.
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