By Scott Gilfoid: British middleweight champion Nick Blackwell (19-3-1, 6 KOs) will be fighting Chris Eubank Jr. (21-1, 16 KOs) this Saturday night at the SSE Arena, Wembley. Eubank Jr. fancies the idea of fighting for the British strap rather than going after a world title right now for some reason.
Without the punching power to keep Eubank Jr. off of him, Blackwell will likely be well over his head in this fight. Blackwell has been getting sparring help recently from former three-time world title challenger loser George Groves. I don’ see how Blackwell can beat Eubank Jr. without the punching power needed to do the job.
I’m not sure it’s going to help Blackwell any to get help from Groves. It seems to me that Blackwell would be much better off getting help from fighters that win their fights rather than ones that lose their world title shots. It might have been better for Blackwell to get help from Carl Froch or Badou Jack, because those are the guys that beat Groves. I’m just saying.
“George is big, strong, very fast and he hits hard. He’s also a really nice lad. I appreciate him letting me go to his gym and spar,” said Blackwell via Fight News. “George Groves is world-class. He has boxed world-class fighters and he has been in some massive events. He has been there and done it. Eubank Jr. hasn’t. He might like to pretend he has, but he really hasn’t.”
The one thing I can say about Groves is he’s big for a super middleweight. He’s light heavyweight big, and I don’t know how practical it was for middleweight Blackwell to spar with a guy the size of Groves. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for Blackwell to spar with a big fighter like Groves, because his fighting style is nothing like that of Eubank Jr.
The 25-year-old Blackwell would have been much better off getting in some sparring with the likes of James DeGale rather than Groves. You know what I mean. If I were fighting Eubank Jr, I sure as heck wouldn’t be looking to spar with Groves. I see that as a time waster.
If Blackwell needed major help in getting ready for the Eubank Jr. fight, then he should have flown over to the States and trained at the Mayweather gym in Las Vegas, Nevada, or gone over to Los Angeles, California to train at the Wildcard Gym owned by Freddie Roach.
I’m sure Blackwell would have gotten much better sparring that would help him than the sparring that he got with Groves, who has a fighting style that is the complete opposite of Eubank Jr.
“You feel good going into a fight like this knowing you’ve sparred countless rounds with a world-class guy from a weight class above,” said Blackwell. “Eubank Jr. doesn’t really use a jab that much, and he’s certainly not going to hit as hard as Groves. I’m in a great place. I’m ready.”
Wow, Blackwell is really slathering on the compliments on Groves. I mean, technically Groves is a world class fighter according to his #2 ranking with the World Boxing Council, but you can definitely argue that Groves shouldn’t even be ranked in the top 15 with any of the sanctioning bodies. Groves has lost three out of his last six fights in the last three years. He has a record of 3-3 in his last six fights. Groves only wins during the last couple of years have come against Christopher Rebrasse, Denis Douglin and Andrea Di Luisa. Since Groves is failing in a major way each time he steps up to the plate, I would have to say he’s not world class. Rather, he’s second tier all the way. In that case, I can’t say it’s a good thing that Blackwell is sparring with him.
“He punches well inside, he finds angles that don’t seem to be there, and he is happy to put it on you from the word ‘go’. He’s a real physical presence in the ring,” said Groves about Blackwell.
When it’s all said and done, I think Blackwell is going to lose to Eubank Jr. on Saturday night and lose badly. This is another Eubank Jr. vs. Gary O’Sullivan type of fight. In other words, Eubank Jr. has picked out another fringe contender in a showcase fight rather than stepping up a level to fight the best like Daniel Jacobs or Gennady Golovkin. Eubank Jr. probably could have gotten fights against both of those guys if he had wanted to. I don’t see why Eubank Jr. is delaying those fights. I don’t see him winning either of them no matter how many showcase fights against weak opposition he takes. Eubank Jr. can fight Blackwell a 1000 times and still wind up getting royally thrashed when he gets inside the ring with the likes of Golovkin and/or Jacobs.
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