By Scott Gilfoid: #1 WBC George Groves (21-3, 16 KOs) suffered his third defeat in his last five fights earlier this month in a loss to WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack (20-1-1, 12 KOs) on September 12th, and Groves is now at risk of seeing his once promising seven year pro career implode completely if he suffers one more defeat. Groves’ career is at it’s crush depth in the sea of boxing, and I don’t think he’ll be able to survive one more loss. One more defeat and I see Groves’ career being vaporized.
As it is, Groves, 27, has a 2-3 record in his last 5 fights, but it really could be over for him if he gets beaten again. What we saw in his 12 round decision loss to Badou is that Groves doesn’t quite have what it takes to beat the world champions in the division.
There’s no shame in Groves losing and being put in his place. But I think it’s important for his promoter Kalle Sauerland to realize what he’s got in Groves so he can match him accordingly with the right type of opposition moving forward in the future.
What Sauerland doesn’t need is to turn Groves into a journeyman level fighter by continually tossing him in with world level fighters and watching him lose each time. We saw pretty clearly that Groves didn’t have the talent to beat Badou or Carl Froch.
Sauerland obviously has the power to schedule a fight between Groves and WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham, as they also promote the 35-year-old Abraham and it would be easy for them to make this fight. But I think it would be a lot better if Groves was brought down to the European level so that they could stop his career hemorrhaging.
They’ve got to stop the bleeding and treat Groves for shock. The best way to do that is to have him fight someone like unbeaten #8 WBO Jamie Cox (19-0, 11 KOs), Martin Murray or some like Callum Smith.
If Groves can beat those guys, which I see as European level fighters, then he would show that he belongs at least at that level. If he can’t beat them, then Groves could lower his sights by focusing on fighting the British level fighters. But Groves needs to prove that he can beat that level of fighters because if he can’t that then he really doesn’t belong messing around trying to fight world champions and thinking he’s got a chance to win. I think Badou is the weak link among the super middleweight champions right now, and Groves couldn’t even beat him.
Another good fight for Groves would be Frank Buglioni, who was beaten last Saturday night by WBA “regular” super middleweight champion Fedor Chudinov by a 12 round decision. Groves and Buglioni could fight one of those weeding out type fights where the loser of the contest forgets all about trying to fight for world titles and instead targets the British or possibly the European titles.
At this point in Groves’ career, I don’t know that he could beat the likes of Buglioni, Cox, Murray, Callum Smith or Rocky Fielding. I think those guys would be very tough fights for Groves, and I could see him losing if he fails to KO them in the first six rounds.
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