INTO THE FINAL
George Groves handles the fire and fury of Chris Eubank Jnr at the Manchester Arena
All the action and reaction as Groves defeats Eubank Jnr in their WBSS semi-final
‘THE CUT AFFECTED MY STYLE. I HAD TO RESORT TO LOADING UP’
MAGIC fades. In its place Chris Eubank
Jnr is left with the stark logic of reality. George Groves was fundamentally better. His jab, his feet, his management of their 12 round championship fight. Calling down fire and fury is all well good, but if it falls half a step short of its intended target then it’s futile.
Groves followed the norms of the sport. He had experience, he used it. He had clear instruction from his corner, he followed it and he had clear, crisp power. He landed it.
Eubank Jnr, in contrast, is happy to turn the basics of boxing on their head. He has a determination to do things his way, laying down his own laws, from fighting as he sees fit to the curiously ill-defined roles of his father, Chris Snr, and trainer, Ronnie Davies, to even quietly wrapping his own hands before a world title fight. That is cussedly admirable, in a sense. It was not however a recipe for victory. Not at this level.
The World Boxing Super Series brought the Brighton star acclaim when he hammered Avni Yildirim unconscious in Germany and took him to this challenge against WBA super-middleweight champion Groves. Junior seemed to relish every moment of the show. At the weigh-in
he had planted himself on the stage and had gone nose-to-nose with Groves. The latter seemed disengaged in the build up to the fight, professing confusion as to why so many were giving Eubank such a good chance of victory. But once he’d hit the scales and made the weight, a familiar intensity descended on Groves.
Anticipation reached fever pitch on the night of the fight. Groves was now the veteran, popular with the crowd at the Manchester Arena. Eubank still looked in his element as he, with the World Boxing Super Series staging, stood on a pedestal, illuminated by light, shadowboxing as he waited for the champion’s arrival.
Groves marched quickly to the ring,
➤ his head nodding forward, all business. Once Junior vaulted the top rope, a nod to his famous father’s ring entrances, the moment for showmanship had passed. It was time for a cold, cruel fight.
Groves came forward concentrated, his body in a slight crouch, his lead left out, ready to jab, ready to feint. Eubank couldn’t do much with that. He didn’t want to run on to it and initially he couldn’t slip round it. He stood on the outside, his hands poised, but without the dynamism to launch his attacks. Groves tagged him with that jab. Junior managed to sweep a right hook across, but it just about caught the champion on the shoulder. A cheer went up for the challenger nonetheless, a cry of “Eubank, Eubank” rang out briefly from the crowd, an echo of old nostalgia. Groves simply jabbed again and hooked in his lead.
In the second round the jab still stopped the Brighton man coming in. With a left hook, Groves set up a hard cross. Even early on it forced Eubank to back off. He smiled and appeared to mouth, “Come on.” Groves did just that, heavy hooks swinging, only to be sucked into a clinch. Junior’s left hook winged wide and Groves jabbed him down. A right hook, swung in close, forced Eubank back a step and Groves shot a solid left straight to the body before the session was out. Shots to the body, particularly the champion’s hefty right cross, would have a noticeable impact on Eubank.
In the third the challenger burst into life. Eubank threw a wild right cross. It might have been instinctive but it hit the mark heavily. He heaved a left hook after it and hammered Groves into the ropes. George’s first reaction under pressure wasn’t to tie him up, it was to hold the ground and fire back. Eubank did snag him with a jab but as Junior moved into clear space, a trickle of red blood from a cut by his eye caught the light.
“I couldn’t see out of my right eye for pretty much most of the fight. It affected my style. I had to resort to loading up because every time he moved to my right, I couldn’t see him. So I would just throw big punches. Tactics is a big thing. His tactics, he did the right thing. He negated some of my work early on,” Junior said. It was ruled to have been caused by an accidental clash of heads.
Chris Sanigar treated the wound between rounds but as the punishing fight progressed, Groves smeared blood across his challenger’s face. It would indeed bother Eubank. But he still barrelled into the champion, holding him down with his left hand to let his right go. The clubbing shots were hardly technical but they did keep Groves under pressure and uncomfortable.
When Eubank smacked him with a left, Groves came right back at him with a fine one-two combination. Junior could sense his successes came when he pressed in close. But Groves grappled with him to tie him up. In the fifth round he spun Eubank out of a clinch and left him hanging half out of the ropes.
Junior tried valiantly to catch Groves on the end of multiple uppercuts, a staple of a Eubank Jnr highlight reel. But this opponent wasn’t going to wait around for them to collide.
Moving out of close quarters warfare, Groves reapplied his jab, slotted in his right and slid back clear. Groves brought in his power. Eubank felt the weight of his punches. The Londoner slammed in his right. The challenger was increasingly disorientated. The fight grew messy at times and Eubank lost his footing in their exchanges. But Groves was a force, flinging explosive punches to drive Junior back.
In the final round Eubank swung a tired hook through the air. Groves was long gone by the time it swept down. Through a mask of blood, Eubank could only smirk wanly at the empty air in front of him.
But he found himself in front of Groves again. Now George had his hands down. At first glance it looked like machismo had got the better of him, as if Groves wanted to prove he could withstand whatever Eubank had and win this fight toe-to-toe as well. But George’s left shoulder had popped out of its socket, dislocated with about two minutes left in the round.
“I didn’t notice,” Eubank admitted. He failed to exploit that vulnerability. Fighting one-handed Groves slid and slipped round the attacks. In a corner Groves snapped his head back gleefully from a right. He even sank a masterful right uppercut and slashed the right straight down.
It was a final act of physical courage and determination to cap a consummate effort from Groves. Eubank questioned his desire before the fight. The champion
‘I WASN’T GOING TO LET ANYTHING BEAT ME. I WANTED IT’
had answered that query as well.
He won a unanimous decision, 117112 for Howard Foster, 116-112 for Steve Gray and 115-113 from Marcus Mcdonnell. Michael Alexander refereed. (I had it 116-112).
“I wasn’t going to let anything beat me. I’ve boxed on with cuts, broken jaws, everything. Here, I wasn’t going to let any injury get me out,” Groves [inset] said. “It was about who wanted it most I think and I obviously wanted it most.”
Eubank ought to learn the lessons of this defeat. But whether he will is another question. Will he have clear instruction from one voice in his corner and go to work on the technical aspects of his boxing? Intensity and physicality are his advantages but that ferocity needs to be refined. He wasn’t entirely wrong on Saturday in Manchester. He wasn’t going to outbox Groves, outfighting him was his route to victory. But George’s power stunned him at times. His way, the Eubank way, has worked to an extent. It got him here after all. But the harder challenge is to suddenly change the strategy, that brought him to this, halfway through the championship fight itself. Eubank has to adapt, even at 28 with the habits of years of training engrained. The nature of this defeat stripped the mystique away from him. If it dispels some of his illusions too, he will be the better fighter for it.
Eubank’s first reaction was that he thought he deserved more from the judges. “I felt I did enough in the later rounds to nick it. But George had the right gameplan. He performed,” Eubank said. “So full credit to him.”
He got a more frank assessment from trainer Ronnie Davies and his father. Chris Eubank Senior insisted, “He didn’t perform. He’s a lot better than what you saw tonight because he was just loading up. That’s the cold, hard truth of it. He’s a good fighter but he didn’t show it. No combinations, just power. You live and learn. George fought the precisely correct fight.”
For Davies: “It wasn’t Chris in there tonight. Following him about instead of closing him down. I kept saying close him down, close him down, which he didn’t do. Groves fought tactically a great fight and he [ Junior] lost the fight… He shouldn’t have done. But he did.”
Ahead of the bout they had openly disregarded Groves’ trainer Shane Mcguigan. That was an error. Mcguigan bluntly recommended that Junior get in a new training team, “not cowboys.”
“I feel like he was lost in there tonight. I feel he needs to go and reassess his career,” Mcguigan said. “If they fought 10 times, I believe he’d beat him 10 times out of 10 and I believe five times out of 10 he’d stop him.”
With this return to the Manchester Arena, the scene of his first loss to Carl Froch, Groves won another exciting, all-british world title fight. With James Degale’s defeat, Gilberto Ramirez’s low key defences and the WBC title vanishing into obscurity, Groves served notice that he is the best supermiddleweight on the planet. He would love to underscore that in the final of the World Boxing Super Series.
THE VERDICT Groves showed the calibre of his boxing, but the injury is a grave concern for the final.