By Scott Gilfoid: #3 WBC super middleweight contender George Groves (21-3, 16 KOs) is in a must win situation in his scheduled 10 round fight this Saturday night against Andrea Di Luisa (18-3, 14 KOs) at the Copper Box Arena in London, UK. Groves has a whole bunch of losses in his last five fights.
In fact, he has three defeats in his last fight bouts. If Groves loses this fight to the 33-year-old Di Luisa, then he might as well pack it in and retire once and for all. To be sure, Groves is still young at only 27, but he’s starting to look a little long in the tooth physically to me. He’s started to get a little thin on top, and he physically doesn’t look like the young fighter that beat James DeGale five years ago in 2011.
While Groves is still young in age, he looks like someone at least seven years older than his chronological age. He’s looking and fighting like a guy in his mid-30s rather than his late 20s, and you have to wonder whether his two knockout defeats at the hands of former super middleweight champion Carl Froch might added some years to him.
Groves came into his first fight against Froch as a young guy on the rise, but he emerged from that knockout loss and an additional KO loss to Froch seemingly in bad shape. In hindsight, it might not have been the best idea for Groves to take the second fight against Froch.
Obviously, the money was too good to turn down, but Groves probably should have taken a good long break in between the first and second fight with Froch so that he could clear his head and rest up from the first KO loss. Instead of doing that, Groves came back six months later and was promptly knocked clean out by Froch in the 8th round in their rematch in May 2014. That was a bad looking knockout if you ask me.
Froch landed a scorching right hand to the head that folded Groves like an accordion on the canvas. Groves had one leg bend beneath him in a painful looking position, and both eyes were closed. I was surprised that Groves didn’t suffer a knee injury from the way his left leg was twisted. Groves came back from those two knockout losses to defeat Denis Douglin and Christopher Rebrasse, but he did not look good in either fight.
The fights looked difficult for Groves, and they shouldn’t have been. In Groves’ last fight, he was beaten by WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack last year in September. Badou put Groves on the canvas in the 1st round in a hard knockdown. Groves came back and fought well in the first half of the fight. However, Badou took control over the fight in the second half of the bout with his heavy pressure and hard body shots. Groves was red-faced and tired looking in the entire second half of the fight. His stamina did not look good at all.
I have a strong feeling that Di Luisa is going to blast Groves into oblivion in this fight. All I can say is if Groves loses to Di Luisa this Saturday night then don’t say I didn’t predict the outcome. I’m just saying. Groves looks like a shot fighter to me, and I think he’s already at career implosion. I think he’d be better off going into training or something if he wants to stay in the boxing business. If not, then he probably needs to think about going back to school and getting degree in something. If Groves earned enough money from his fights against Froch, then maybe he can just live the life of leisure within reason. If Groves did get enough cash from the Froch fights to live the rest of his life without working, I’m sure he’ll still need to be smart with his money to make sure that it lasts. You’d hate to see Groves throwing his money around and end up broke and needing to make a comeback at some point.
Other fights on the Groves-Di Luisa card:
John Ryder vs. Sergey Khomitsky
John Wayne Hibbert vs. Tommy Martin
Martin Joseph Ward vs. Mario Pisanti
Kris Agyei-Dua vs. Ben Hall
Leon McKenzie vs. Kelvin Young
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