By Scott Gilfoid: #2 WBA, #6 IBF, #7 WBO, George Groves (19-1, 15 KO’s) is really looking forward to the press tour with IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch (32-2, 23 KO’s) to hype their May 31st fight at the Wembley Stadium, Wembley, in London, United Kingdom. In the build up for their fight last November, Groves got the better of Froch verbally in pretty much every meeting they had with one another.
The high point for Groves came when he had Froch near tears when they both appeared on Sky Ringside. Froch wouldn’t even look at Groves despite the fact that he was sitting next to him. Froch looked mentally unnerved by having Groves in near proximity to him, and he definitely struggled to find the words to answer Groves.
As bad as Froch looked in all of those meetings, I’d be surprised if he agrees to show-up on Sky Ringside – or any other situation where he’ll need to be in the same room as Groves – to hype the fight. I think it’ll hurt the fight if Froch chooses not to meet with Groves on shows, but that’s what I see happening.
“I love having a little verbal spat with Carl because when he is threatened he spits out his dummy,” Groves told Sky Sports Toe-to-Toe. “He stops making sense, he starts contradicting himself and he starts relying on cliches and pre-rehearsed scripts. He’s not proactive, he’s not even reactive. He’s just set in his ways and for him a verbal battle must be soul-destroying. If I was Carl I wouldn’t be looking forward to any confrontation with me – especially the ones that don’t have gloves in!”
I agree with Groves. He had Froch looking bad in their meetings. It was like watching Clarence Darrow grill William Jennings Bryan. Groves should become a lawyer after he retires from boxing because I think he’d do well in that profession. It wouldn’t be such a big deal if Froch would just admit his failings as a fighter, and just come clean that he has flaws in his game like any fighter. But Froch gets too worked up each time Groves admits that he’s got holes in his game, or when he expresses his belief that he can beat Froch. Having his career questioned by Groves, gets Froch boiling to the point where he’s not sounding level-headed.
I don’t see what the big deal is for Froch. If he really believes that he’s a great fighter, then it shouldn’t bother him to hear Groves trash him. I mean, if he really believes that he’s a great fighter then he should be able to laugh off the comments. But the fact that Froch gets heated to a boil by harmless comments by Groves about his career, it comes across like Froch might have some self-doubt that lingers in his mind. If that’s the case, Froch should just come clean and admit that he’s not as good as he’d like to be. If he does that then what Groves says shouldn’t bother him, because it would be something that he actually agrees with instead of a message about himself that he doesn’t want to confront.
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