I’ll show Chris he is still the junior partner
GEORGE GROVES returns to the scene of his first defeat this evening determined to prove he has learnt from the dark days and will be too bright for Chris Eubank jnr.
Groves, the WBA super-middleweight champion, is back at the Manchester Arena where he suffered his first defeat, against Carl Froch in November 2013, when he felt referee Howard Foster stopped the fight too early in the ninth round of a ferocious fight.
But he believes there were lower moments – and they have turned him into a more rounded fighter, who can deal with anything Eubank throws at him tonight.
“After that first Froch fight I didn’t really feel like I had lost,” he said.
“The rematch (Froch knocked him out at Wembley Stadium the following May) was a far greater low than that night, and the Badou Jack fight (his third world title defeat) too. Those two were the worst. I don’t take anything for granted.
“They talk about Eubank being younger and fresher but he’s only a year younger than me. I won’t struggle to find a home for my shots. He will have to walk through fire to land his. I won’t be a static target laying on the ropes.”
But Eubank, 28, feels that rather than a fighter who has found new steel, Groves is fractured and flawed by those losses.
“When I looked into his eyes I felt weakness and regret,” said Eubank.
“He is there to be beaten. He is there to be dominated.
“I don’t feel he’s there mentally and prepared to put everything on the line like I am. I’m willing to do anything I can to win that fight within the rules of boxing. I will not give up, I will not stop. I won’t crumble.
“He has been definitively beaten by other men, he knows how to lose, he knows how to get knocked out.
“Do I dislike him? I’m not that type of man, I don’t dislike people.
“He’s just a guy with a belt and we happen to have a rivalry.
“I’ve wanted to fight him for years and the public want to see it. It doesn’t mean I hate him, he’s just in an unfortunate position of standing in my path.”