groves5 By Scott Gilfoid: #3 WBC super middleweight contender George Groves (21-3, 16 KOs) is once again pushing the reset button on his career after suffering yet another defeat in his past bout against WBC 168lb champion Badou Jack last September in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Groves, 27, has lost 3 out of his last 5 fights, and things aren’t looking so good for the British fighter right now. However, Groves believes he’ll soon be back at the top with his new trainer Shane McGuigan.

Groves thinks he can find success with the help of McGuigan and once again challenge for world titles. Groves is helped by the fact that he’s not been dropped much by the World Boxing Council in their rankings. Despite the mess of losses that Groves has suffered in the last three years, the WBC still has him ranked at No.3.

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that kind of thing before where a fighter loses 3 out of his last 5 fights and is still ranked at No.3 with a sanctioning body. All I can say is if Groves loses to his next opponent Andrea Di Luisa (18-3-KO14) in their fight on January 30th, and yet still remains ranked in the top 5 by the WBC, it would be very troubling to me. I mean, you’ve got to see some kind of a drop off in the rankings when you’ve got a guy losing 24/7, shouldn’t you?

“It’s not like I can’t get to the top,” Groves said to skysports.com. “I lost a split decision in Vegas [to Badou Jack] and I could’ve done better and should’ve done better. I will rectify that, sooner rather than later. The best way to go about that was, most importantly, to change training team – that wasn’t working out.”

If Groves loses to Andrea Di Luisa or barely beats him in their fight on 1/30, then I think he should think about retiring, because this guy is so far removed from the top echelon of the 168lb division that it’s not even funny. You’ve got to be able to easily whip a guy like Di Luisa if you’re anything in the division.

Groves switched out trainer Paddy Fitzpatrick for McGuigan following the loss to Badou. I honestly don’t think it really matters who trains Groves. I see it as something that’s beyond a training issue for Groves. I mean, if you had McGuigan training him for the Badou and his two fights against Carl Froch, I still think Groves would have lost all three of those fights. If that had happened on McGuigan’s watch, I think Groves would have switched him out too for someone else, maybe Fitzpatrick or someone else.

There is no magic trainer that is going to fix Groves chin and stamina issues in my view. I think those are fixed elements of Groves’ game. Every fighter has flaws in their game that are beyond the ability of a trainer to fix. You can’t take a weak puncher or a someone with a weak chin and put them in with a different trainer and expect those flaws to be fixed. They won’t be. McGuigan seems like a nice guy, but he’s not a miracle worker, and I don’t think he’s going to help Groves any more than Fitzpatrick did.

If Groves doesn’t have the talent to beat the top guys, which I think is the case, then McGuigan is not going to be of help. He’s just the new flavor of the week in this game of musical chairs in terms of Groves switching out his trainers when things go bad for him. If I were Groves and I lost to Froch and Badou, I wouldn’t switch out my trainers. I would focus on my conditioning and learn to box better. I think it’s pretty clear from watching Groves’ recent fights that he needs serious help with his stamina and defense.

Fitzpatrick could have done those things. However, I’m still not sure that Groves will ever be able to fix his stamina problems. Some fighters just aren’t able to fight hard for more than six rounds without running out of gas. Even George Foreman was little more than a six round fighter earlier in his career. Yeah, he found success in the second half of his career by pacing himself, but he didn’t fight the top guys like Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis and Riddick Bowe, who would have forced him to fight at a fast pace.