I’D HAVE BEATEN YOUR DAD TOO!
Groves goads Eubank Jnr before big fight
NEVER mind Chris Eubank Jnr tomorrow night. George Groves has no doubt he would have beaten the legendary father back in the last golden era of British boxing. The most ego-wounding insult prior to this lip-smacking world super-middleweight title fight came when Saint George was asked how it would have gone had he fought Eubank Snr.
‘I would have won,’ came the answer which will ignite thousands of fiery bar-room arguments across this land, in which the elder Eubank is revered for his own heroic battles against Nigel Benn, Michael Watson and Steve Colllins. Explain please, George?
‘I haven’t seen that much of him but I’m sure I would have beaten him,’ Groves replies. ‘He has enough losses on his record (five) and I don’t fall for his bull****.
‘His two fights I’ve watched most closely were those defeats by Collins, who beat him in every minute every round. Senior didn’t fight like that. He was about posturing and being heavy-handed.
‘Back then his gimmicks annoyed some of his opponents, who fought him with their emotions. I keep mine out of the ring so I wouldn’t have made that mistake. Probably he wasn’t much of a trainer so maybe he wouldn’t have survived in this era.’
Groves, 29, recalls Senior bringing Junior to spar with him when he was training for his grudge fight with James DeGale in 2011: ‘The son was available and cheap but brilliant.
‘He would come in moody. Do his rounds. Go out with maybe a little smile at me if I beat him up or a swagger if he thought he did well. My trainer (Adam Booth) wanted the dad around to test my mental stability. If I could put up with the dad I was mentally strong. Fine. But ultimately I stopped sparring with Junior because I couldn’t put up with all the rubbish coming out of Senior’s mouth.
‘At one point he advised me to fight DeGale for every of minute of every round. He must have been remembering Steve Collins doing that to him. But he wasn’t privy to our plan to box James on the back foot.
‘When I won he sent me a text saying, “Well done”. Junior keeps saying he’s stepping out from his father’s shadow but he’s still in the background giving interviews. It would be better for him if he had left Dad at home.
‘People would have seen through Senior now. In this era you have to step up for the big fights. Junior is having to do that against me because you can’t keep going on handpicking opponents these days.
‘ Senior didn’t fight t the big-name Americans. So DeGale calls him a world champion. That’s good.’ Ouch. That hurts. Groves believes he will damage 28-yearold Eubank Jnr in the Manchester Arena, a, saying: ‘He’s trying to make this into a big rivalry ivalry between us because he craves the big fight, craves all the attention. But that’s not true.
‘It’s not like the rivalry between Carl Froch and myself, which happened organically.
‘ He keeps saying this is my biggest and hardest fight. But it’s not. I expect a tough night but he’s not as difficult an opponent as Carl or Badou Jack or the big-puncher (Fedor Chudinov) who I beat t to win my world title.’ That WBA belt is on the lin line. So is a place in the final of the new World Super Series t tournament at London’s O2 Arena on June 2, against the winner of next Saturday’s second semi-final in Nuremberg between another Brit, Callum Smith, and German Jurgen Braehmer. ‘I hope Smith comes through,’ says Groves. ‘It would be another big night for me in London.’ Groves v Eubank will be live from 7pm tomorrow night on ITV Box Office at £16.95.