By Scott Gilfoid: Super middleweight contender George Groves (24-3, 18 KOs) defeated former light heavyweight title challenge Eduard Gutknecht (30-5-1, 13 KOs) by 12 round unanimous decision on Friday night to hold onto his WBA International super middleweight title at the Wembley Arena in London, England. Groves won, but he didn’t distinguish himself as being future world champion material. Groves looked like the same fighter that was soundly whipped by Carl Froch in the past.
The win for Groves puts him in position for a world title fight in 2017. Groves said after the fight that he wants to fight WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack next year so that he can try and avenge his loss to him from 2015.
Groves showed good boxing skills in weathering an early high energy attack from Gutknecht in the first three rounds. Groves had to take some hard power shots and jabs. What was impressive was how Groves was able to handle fighting for a full three minutes of the first three rounds without gassing out like he’d done against Carl Froch and Badou Jack.
The final judges’ scores were 119-110, 119-109 and 119-109. Boxing News 24 gave Groves the win 9 rounds to 3. Groves took a lot of shots from the light hitting Gutknecht in the first three rounds, as the German based fighter pushed a very fast pace during that time of the fight. However, Gutknecht seemed to wear down after getting hurt by Groves in round 4 after taking two hard right hands to the head. Gutknecht was not the same after that round.
Groves, 28, dominated the 34-year-old Gutknecht in the 8th round, as he was no longer getting any resistance from him. Gutknecht stopped throwing punches in that round. It looked at first like Gutknecht was taking the round off in order to come back in the next round, but unfortunately that’s not it was.
Gutknecht stopped punching at a high pace for the remainder of the fight, and this enabled Groves to take over and dictate the action. It’s unclear if Gutknecht gassed out of suffered some kind of injury in the 8th, considering that he stopped letting his hands go almost entirely.
In the 9th round, Gutknecht took a lot of heavy blows from Groves. By the end of the round, Gutknecht’s right eye was swollen badly and almost completely shut. Gutknecht was able to catch Groves with some stinging jabs that got his attention in the 9th, but that’s about it. Gutknecht was no longer throwing power shots, and that’s what he needed to throw in order to keep Groves off of hm.
The fight slowed down in rounds 10 through 12, as Groves attacked at a slow pace throwing big right hands, but not always landing. Gutknecht was focusing on throwing jabs to the head of Groves, and sneaky left hooks. Gutknecht was able to catch Groves every once in a while with nice shots, but they lacked the power needed for him to get him out of there the way that former super middleweight champion Carl Froch had done twice.
After the fight, Groves had two large purple lumps on his forehead. It looked like they were the product of head-butts, but you never know. Gutknecht was nailing Groves with snapping jabs and right hands. It could be that one of those shots caused his forehead to swell up. Groves was pretty excited about his win over the unranked Gutknecht. I’m not sure why, because the fighter isn’t even ranked in the top 15 and was recently easily beaten by former WBA light heavyweight champion Juergen Braehmer.
Gutknecht was also knocked out by Dmitry Sukhotsky in the 4th round three years ago in 2013. Gutknecht’s wins in the last three years have come against weak opposition like Steve Kroekel (19-25-2), Slavisa Simeunovic (18-11) and Pablo Sosa (3-3). We’re not talking about great fighters. I could understand Groves getting excited about a win if he were to beat the likes of Callum Smith, the Dirrell brothers, or Abraham. That’s not who he beat tonight. Groves beat an aging fighter with no power and who was recently beaten by Braehmer.
“We knew he had good powers of recovery,” said Groves about Gutknecht after the fight. “He was getting a little wild in there. I wanted to go a few rounds. We want real fights. I think it was a performance for me to push on to a world title. Next year, I’ll take over the world,” said Groves. “I think I’ll beat them all. I’d love a rematch with Badou Jack. I think I’d do a proper job on him.”
Honestly, the results from tonight’s Groves- Gutknecht fight showed that Groves is still a very, very flawed fighter, and that he’s still too easy to hit. I don’t think that Groves showed that he’s good enough to beat champions James DeGale, Badou Jack or Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez. Groves does look good enough to beat WBA ‘regular’ super middleweight champion Tyron Zeuge. If that’s who Groves’s promoters at Sauerland match him up against, then I think he’ll beat Zeuge. He’s definitely better than the 24-year-old German fighter in my view. However, Groves DOES not look good enough to beat contenders like Callum Smith, David Benavidez, Anthony Dirrell, Andre Dirrell, Rogelio Medina, Arthur Abraham, Lucian Bute, and Fedor Chudinov. I think all of those guys beat Groves. He might get lucky and defeat some of them, but definitely not all of them. There are other contenders in the division that would give Groves a lot of problems as well like Jesse Hart, Matt Karobov, Zac Dunn and Jose Uzcategui. With the amount of shots that Groves was hit with by Gutknecht tonight, I think he’d be in trouble if he was getting hit by the above mentioned fighters, because they all can punch with decent power.
Groves isn’t going to be able to do much if he’s matched against DeGale, Jack or Ramirez. I would hope for Groves’ sake that his German promoters took a good look at him tonight and keep him away from those champions. I think Groves is better off fighting the WBA ‘regular’ strap holder Zeuge. That’s a fight that Groves can win, as long as he puts pressure on the German fighter.