By John Spandley: On the 30th January George Groves will take on the Italian Andrea Di Luisa which is surely a match teed up to shake some cobwebs and exercise some lingering demons after a rollercoaster couple of years. The 3 time world title challenger is now back in the ring following his split decision loss to Badou Jack for the WBC World Super-Middleweight Championship on the undercard of Floyd Mayweather’s last victory against Andre Berto.

Groves has had some very humbling experiences as of late. He had started off his career wiping out many that stood in front of him, even subduing Paul Smith in a way that Arthur Abraham would not even be able to dream of after their two world championship encounters. Even defeating the new IBF Champion James Degale in a hotly close contested match in the rise of their careers.

Since George has entered the scene he has carried an arrogant but confident aura with him, leaving many opponents fearing his spearing right hand… this right hand we haven’t seen since it floored the throwback fighter that was Carl Froch. Ever since that first defeat the right handed cross that crumpled many fighters before Carl had decided to leave George`s locker.

2016 can really be a make or break year for Groves who was widely tipped to be the heir to the throne for British Super Middleweights and it will take a few affairs to be put in order for him to reach the altitudes he was trying to break through until his world crumbled before him in that savage knock out that he experienced from “The Cobra” in their final dance.

It would seem that the wheels slowly started to come off when he decided to leave his trainer Adam Booth, whom he started his professional career with. Booth masterfully helped Groves overcome many obstacles on his ascendance to contender status. Something happened though – when George was due to fight Carl Froch for their first battle, news had swept the boxing faithful stating that George had left his trainer citing irreparable differences between the two. Later news suggested that George was left to prepare on his own for the biggest event of his life forcing his hand.

George later linked up with Paddy Fitzpatrick who had been training with Adam Booth’s team and had obviously had a good rapport with George. For the first fight it would seem that Paddy and George were going to work wonders in the boxing scene with the crab like style that George adopted to cut off the ring on Carl Froch, instantly applying the pressure before he appeared to gas out. Judging from the performances since it would appear that George used this tactic from his previous discussions with Booth as this very style appeared to be the key to relieving the champion of his titles if conditioning allowed it. In the second fight different tactics were adopted and it became somewhat of an amateur jab-fest until, as George described “A punch from the gods” cut his night short. The following fights also did not create much diversity in technique as his previous fights had showcased this prior to his teaming up with Fitzpatrick. I also believe the big promotional push beforehand did not help.

Since Georges inevitable split with Fitzpatrick many trainers have been touted to take over the guard of strategizing in his corner from Freddie Roach to Froch`s previous trainer Rob McCracken. George confirmed the reports on the split stating in a frank interview with Sky Sports, “After the last fight, I think he came to terms with the fact our styles just didn’t gel. His style of training didn’t really work with my style of fighting.”

George now has Shane McGuigan in his corner, who is son of former world featherweight champion Barry McGuigan. He is current trainer to Carl Frampton and has recently done some work with David Haye on his comeback fight. Shane is not as widely renowned as Freddie Roach or Rob McCracken but surely has a high level of respect in the game despite his age (which is the same as George) with his ever expanding stable growing over the past year or so.

It would now seem Groves is at a cross roads in his career. One more loss and there would be likely zero chance of a fourth title contention. The road will be tougher than he has ever faced before if he is to start his ascent back up the Super Middleweight ladder with future clashes with the likes of Calum Smith, the Dirrell brothers and the young Chudinov to get through even before a grudge match with Degale or retribution with Badou Jack can commence. Will conditioning, chin and hunger allow one last hoorah or will the fall of the Saint be a reality. Time will tell.