By Scott Gilfoid: After losing twice in a row to former IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch and then beating a couple of obscure/lesser 168lb fighters in Christopher Rebrasse and Denis Douglin, Britain’s George Groves (21-2, 16 KOs) will be getting a world title shot on a silver platter given to him against WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack (19-1-1, 12 KOs) on August 22nd in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to ESPN.
This is obviously isn’t what the 31-year-old Jack had in mind for the fight date for his title defense against Groves, because he’d been talking about him defending his title against Groves on the undercard of Floyd Mayweather Jr’s September 12th card at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
That would have been the perfect card for the hard hitting Jack to fight on because it would have given him a big opportunity to shine in front of the entire world. There would have been millions of eyeballs watching that fight, and Jack could have shown his stuff by whipping Groves in front of tons of people on Showtime pay-per-view.
World Boxing Council president Mauricio Sulaiman revealed earlier today on Twitter that the Badou Jack vs. George Groves fight will be taking place on August 22nd. Mayweather Promotions might have something to say about that because I’m sure they wouldn’t mind having their fighter Badou Jack as the co-feature on Mayweather’s next fight card.
The only problem with Jack fighting in the co-feature bout is he doesn’t have a good opponent for him to fight. I mean, Groves has lost 2 out of his last 4 fights, and he arguably doesn’t deserve to be fighting for another world title after those losses. Groves got the chance to fight again for another world title after beating little known Rebrasse, a fighter who has zero power and marginal skills. Rebrasse is a fighter that was suddenly ranked high by the WBC after he beat another flawed fighter.
Instead of the WBC picking out contenders who’d been doing well lately for their WBC eliminator, they selected Groves and Rebrase. At the time, Groves has lost back to back fights against Froch. In other words, Groves’ record was 0-2 in his last two fights, yet the WBC still selected him to fight in their WBC 168 pound eliminator.
I know, it doesn’t make sense because in sports you move ahead on merit, not on failure, but that’s what we saw with Groves getting selected by the WBC to fight in their WBC eliminator bout. It obviously reflected badly on the WBC for them to do this because the sanctioning bodies don’t usually scout out fighters that have been knocked out twice in a row when selecting contenders to fighter in their eliminator bouts.
Jack recently defeated former WBC super middleweight champion Antony Dirrell by a 12 round majority decision in a close fight last April. Dirrell fought the wrong fight, and it ended up costing him his WBC title.
You have to give Jack an excellent chance of successfully defending his WBC title against Groves, likely be knockout. Groves’ chin is very questionable, as we saw in the past. If Jack hits Groves enough, I suspect history will repeat itself with Groves dropping for the 10 count.
I just wonder how long it’s going to take before the WBC gives Groves another shot at a world title if/when he loses to Badou Jack? I would hope that the WBC at least makes sure that Groves fights someone good next time around like Andre or Anthony Dirrell. I mean, if they’re going to keep giving Groves chances at winning world titles on the back of knockout losses, then Groves should at least prove himself against some quality fighters, shouldn’t he?
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