(Photo Credit: Lawrence Lustig) By Scott Gilfoid: Italian Andrea Di Luisa (18-3, 14 KOs) thinks former two time world title challenger George Groves (21-3, 16 KOs) has seen better days in his eight-year pro career, and he feels that he’s no longer the same fighter he once was.
Di Luisa specifically believes the two knockout losses to former world champion Carl Froch and recently a 12 round decision loss to WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack took something out of Groves.
Groves and Di Luisa will be facing off in a 10 round bout this Saturday, January 30th at the Copper Box Arena in London, UK.
It’s definitely hard to argue with the 33-year-old Di Luisa about his opinion about the 27-year-old Groves looking nothing like the fighter he was before his recent string of losses. Groves has lost three out of his last five fights.
Granted, you can explain away Groves’ defeats to Froch and Badou by saying that he lost to the best, and that most fighters in the division would have lost to those guys too with the way they were fighting when Groves mixed it up with them. But the fact that Groves was even shaken up by non-punchers Denis Douglin and Christopher Rebrasse suggests that there may be a problem with his punch resistance.
“I don’t believe George is the same fighter as he was before those fights against Froch and Jack,” said Di Luisa. “Only George knows how he feels. I can only comment from my point of view. On January 30 we will see how it goes – I do have a good punch.”
Di Luisa does have punching power. Before Di Luisa recent fight against Lucian Bute, I figured that he was just another obscure fighter with no punching power that would be an easy mark for Bute to whip on and get an easy KO. Yeah, Bute did get a fairly quick knockout in the fight based on his superior size and power in the ring, but I was surprised at how much punching power Di Luisa had going for him. First off, Di Luisa did not look like a super middleweight in size. He looked like a middleweight who was fighting in the super middleweight division.
Di Luisa could clearly be fighting at 160 and probably should because he doesn’t have the kind of size to be fighting at 168. However, what I was impressed with was Di Luisa’s punching power. The guy had really heavy hands, and he rocked Bute with a hard right hand in the 4th that him shook up for a moment. I rate Di Luisa’s punching power as being better than IBF super middleweight champion James DeGale. Di Luisa does not have DeGale’s hand speed or his boxing ability, but he does have better power in either hand.
This could be bad news for Groves if Di Luisa is able to put hands on him for any length of time in this fight, because Groves is susceptible to head shots. Heck, even body shots bother Groves. Badou was nailing Groves with incredibly hard body shots from rounds two through eight, and by the last four rounds of the fight, Groves looked weak, tired and old in the ring. I think Badou’s body shots sapped the power out of Groves’ body and had him throwing shots with absolutely nothing on them.
“George is a good boxer, a good fighter,” Di Luisa said. “He’s had a few chances to be a World champion but hasn’t succeeded. He’s a good fighter and a hard puncher but I’m ready for anything. I’m going to London to win.”
I think Groves is going to be trying hard to get an early knockout in this fight so that he can impress the fans at the Copper Box, and also so that he can show the critics that he’s not a shot fighter and over-the-hill at 27. What this means is that we’re going to see Groves sitting down on his shots a little more than he normally does because he’ll be wanting to get Di Luisa out of there fast.
This is going to make Groves very vulnerable to Di Luisa’s hard shots, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Groves on his backside on the canvas staring up at the lights. If Groves goes after Di Luisa as hard as I think he will, then I think we might see Groves knocked clean out like he was in his second fight against Froch. Groves had his eyes closed and looked like he was napping on the canvas in that fight.
I hate to say it but I do believe that Di Luisa is going to be putting Groves out of his misery on Saturday night by knocking him out and finishing his career. Do I think Groves will continue to fight after the knockout loss? Yep. He’ll probably start yapping about how his trainer Shane McGuigan has spotted some flaw in his game that he noticed from the Di Luisa fight that he believes he can fix so that Groves is a changed man.
The problem is I see Groves getting knocked the spark out in his future fights as well no matter what changes McGuigan makes to his game. However, Groves might move ahead and change trainers if he loses to Di Luisa. You have to figure that’s a possibility as well. I mean, Groves switched out his previous trainer Paddy Fitzpatrick after his loss to Badou last September.
I don’t think there was any real reason to make a move from Fitzpatrick. It seemed to me that the reason Groves lost the fight to Badou was because he couldn’t take Badou’s power early on to the head, and he didn’t have the stamina to fight hard for 12 full rounds. The fight was still winnable for Groves after the 1st round knockdown if he had simply been able to fight hard for a full 12 rounds. Never the less, Groves was fighting on fumes in the last four rounds of the fight, and there was nothing that Fitzpatrick could do about it. I think Groves’ stamina issues will be there with McGuigan or any trainer. If he gets dragged into the deep end by a tough fighter, I see Groves gassing every time.
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