(George Groves seen here confronting Carl Froch after being shoved by him at their media photo shoot today at Wembley Stadium) By Scott Gilfoid: Challenger George Groves (19-1, 15 KO’s) is reportedly insisting that there be a neutral referee for his May 31st rematch against IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch (32-2, 23 KO’s) at the Wembley Stadium, Wembley, in London, United Kingdom.
According to Sky Sports, Groves will not fight Froch unless the British Boxing Board of Control appoints a neutral official [referee] to work the fight. If the BBBofC don’t agree to appoint neutral officials, then Groves won’t take the fight.
Groves doesn’t want to have a referee that fails to do his job correctly, as last time the referee jumped in and halted the action in the 9th round when Groves was slightly dazed from a punch. The thing is, earlier in the fight the referee let the action continue when Froch was knocked down in the 1st round and badly hurt. Froch was staggering after he got back to his feet, but the referee still let the fight go on without jumping on Froch and putting him in a headlock like he did with Groves.
“It was a stonewall robbery first time, everyone knows it, and that’s why I’ve requested neutral officials,” Groves said via Sky Sports. “It’s conditional on the fight going ahead.”
The whole thing about there being a neutral referee and judges should have been in the contract language for the fight, although it would have had to have been blessed by the British Board at the time. Hearn couldn’t have just said that it would happen without the BBBofC agreeing on this.
Hearn agrees that there should be neutral officials, so it’s now going to be up to the British Boxing Board if they’ll allow that to happen. If not, then we may not have a fight between them. It would be a pity, because the fight would be huge and clearly the biggest fight since in the UK since Ricky Hatton’s fight against Juan Lazcano back in 2007.
You can’t blame Groves at all for wanting to have neutral officials working the fight, because the referee that worked their previous fight was way too quick to halt the fight in the 9th round when Groves was hurt. Groves really wasn’t that hurt at all at the time. Froch charged him after hitting him with a right hand, and ended up bumping into him and knocking him into the ropes. The referee Howard John Foster then jumped on Groves and stopped the fight. It just looked like he handled it badly, and didn’t seen to notice that Froch had bumped Groves like a little bull charging into a matador.
They need a referee that will actually call the fouls that are being committed in the fight, because you can’t have rabbit punches, hitting on the break, and other such fouls being allowed for 12 rounds without it being a joke of a fight. If a referee is going to allow those kinds of things to be done, then Groves and Froch might as well go out there and start kicking and grappling on the canvas like a typical MMA fight. With all the fouling that was done lat November, I saw it as a watered down MMA type of match with referee doing zero to control the fouling.
I’d like to see someone like Jay Nady to work the Froch-Groves rematch. Nady is a no nonsense type of referee that refuses to put up with fouling. If there’s any fouling going on in the fight, he’ll nip it in the bud immediately.
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