Eubank says Groves will be "a stone heavier" on fight night

Meet Sergey Rozvadovskij: The Man Who Sparred George Groves and Chris Eubank Jr

Few men can say they have shared a ring with both George Groves and Chris Eubank Jr. But Sergey Rozvadovskij has sparred the pair for years.


OF all the boxers I’ve ever seen spar, none have been tougher than Lithuanian light-heavyweight Sergey Rozvadovskij.

Hands up, chin down, he’d use large forearms to construct an impenetrable wall around his face and then use an unbreakable will to march down whoever was unfortunate enough to be in his way. Unflustered, he did this round after round, never once complaining, never asking for a break or a day off, and if told there was to be a 30-second rest between rounds, as opposed to the customary minute, he offered merely a shrug.

This is no exaggeration. In fact, few boxers know more about Groves and Eubank Jr, having eaten up their punches and asked questions of their resolve, than Rozvadovskij.

About Eubank Jr, he says, “He was a good boxer. Compared to most boxers, he is powerful. But compared to George, he’s not so powerful. He’s smaller, he’s definitely a middleweight, and that means he doesn’t hit as hard. But he is fast and he has good stamina. He definitely has good stamina. He could go round after round and not seem that tired.

“He’s also quite awkward. He’s not like a basic boxer. He doesn’t do anything right. But that makes him very difficult to box. You can’t guess what he’s going to do. In the ring, you are thinking, man, he doesn’t do anything from the textbook but it’s f****** working.”

Rozvadovskij laughs. He remembers Eubank Jr’s unorthodoxy and his engine. He remembers the stuff that made him different to the others. Different to Golovkin. Different to Groves. Yet it was nothing to fear, he stresses. The power Eubank Jr possessed wasn’t Golovkin power; nor was it Groves power.

On Groves, Sergey said: “His jab is great, and people talk about that a lot, but with George it’s also about his movement and speed. He uses his legs very well in the ring.

“If he can keep his distance from Chris, he should win. He just needs to keep Chris away. He’s much bigger and he has a much longer reach. All he needs to do is box and keep Chris off. If he does that, he will win the fight.”

It’s not just at long range Eubank Jr needs to be cautious, Rozvadovskij believes. Up close, too, he might find it difficult going about his work without taking an almighty right hand, left hook or uppercut for his troubles.

“I wouldn’t say Chris has the advantage in a fight up close,” says Sergey. “People think that, but George is very good in those areas well.

“Sure, Chris would definitely love to do that, push George against the ropes and in the corners, because otherwise he won’t be able to do anything. I mean, what can he do if it becomes a boxing match? There is no way Chris can outbox George. His reach is smaller. He won’t even come close to George. He won’t be able to land punches unless they are close. He will come forward. That’s a fact. He has to.”

Finally, having remembered all the times they sparred, all the punches given and received, Sergey Rozvadovskij takes a moment to reflect, a moment to think, and then prepares his official prediction, one that should, if you appreciate the man’s history, resonate more than most.

“It will be a unanimous decision for George,” he says, without so much as a shred of doubt. “He will outbox him.”

Sergey Rozvadovskij got on with it. He treated sparring as his day job and soaking up the punches of better-known boxers a daily requirement of said job. Even Gennady Golovkin couldn’t put a dent in him.

Which is why George Groves employed Rozvadovskij as a sparring partner for the majority of his fights from 2011 onwards – up until the day Rozvadovskij retired in 2014 – and also why Chris Eubank Jr, a man who has often complained about a lack of willing sparring partners, turned to the poker-faced Eastern European on more than one occasion.

With Sergey Rozvadovskij, you see, they knew exactly what they were getting. They all did.


“I think I sparred Eubank four or five different times,” Rozvadovskij told Boxing News on Tuesday. “We’d do probably six rounds at least each time. With George, I was his sparring partner for almost every fight. I have sparred hundreds of rounds with George.”

 

ADAM BOOTH promises me two things: he promises to first talk about the fight – a breakthrough in itself – and then, if I’m really good, promises to provide an honest and definitive answer to the question the whole boxing world wants to ask.

This means more than it normally would because the fight in question, Saturday’s (February 17) WBA world super-middleweight title clash between George Groves and Chris Eubank Jr, is, for all intents and purposes, Adam Booth’s specialist subject on Mastermind. His analysis, therefore, is less of a throwaway opinion – a dime a dozen where this one is concerned – and more of a peek at a Magic 8-Ball: give it a shake, wait for the answer, and invest everything in the reveal.


Booth, after all, spent six years as the coach of George Groves, guiding him to British and Commonwealth super-middleweight titles, and was also in the corner for Chris Eubank Jr’s 2015 fights with Tony Jeter and Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan. During this time he watched both men spar each other on a regular basis and got to know them as boxers, people and, unbeknown to him at the time, future rivals.

Now, with no allegiance to either (“I’m not here for the fight. I’m going away to Monaco,” he says), he is ideally placed to offer an insight unmatched by anyone else in the sport. What’s more, a long-standing reticence, both in terms of talking about the fight and the two men individually, has somehow made the Adam Booth perspective all the more sought-after and valuable. Treat them mean, keep them keen. That kind of thing.

“I’m not going to speak to anyone about the fight,” he tells me. “I’ll just talk to you and that’s it.”


Sometimes we get lucky.


Question: When Chris Eubank Jr first entered the Hayemaker gym in Vauxhall as a young amateur ready to spar George Groves, what did you make of him?

Adam Booth: “I didn’t like him necessarily but I admired him. I admired the fact he was prepared to do what he had to do and never spoke or complained.

“There were never too many rounds for him. On one occasion he did six rounds with George and then six rounds with Nathan Cleverly. He controlled pretty much every round. And that was a long, long time ago. He probably only had a few pro fights to his name.

“He has always impressed me with his ability, his energy and his single-minded nastiness. And, let’s face it, that’s what you sometimes need in order to be a good fighter. You need to be self-absorbed, narcissistic and arrogant.”

Q: How good were the spars between Groves and Eubank Jr?

AB: “Very good. In fact, I don’t think either of them ever had better spars in terms of the work they got in. They knew that if they made a mistake they would pay for it.

“There’s only one occasion I can recall when one of them was slightly hurt. That was, ironically, when George caught Junior with a left hook and Junior appeared to be stunned. There was definitely something that happened in that spar because of that left hook. That was probably one of the last spars they had.”

Q: How many times did they spar over the years?

AB: “They did an average of six rounds each time and I’d guesstimate they did that on 30 different occasions. But it might be closer to 50.”

Q: In all the years you watched the two of them spar, did you ever one day think they’d fight each other?

AB: “No. No one could foresee the World Boxing Super Series and I think the World Boxing Super Series is the only reason why they are fighting on Saturday. Without that, where would Eubank Jr be? He’d have an IBO title and no promotional agreement because his dad has p***ed everyone off. He’d have either gone to the States or just been in limbo.”

This content is protected

This content is protected

This content is protected

 

Part 2 of that Adam Booth interview on Groves vs CEJ

He says BJS 2.0 gave Groves ''nightmares'' in sparring

BJS 2.0 unified MW champion in 2018, unified SMW champion in 2019, and unified LHW champion in 2020. And that's a fact btw.

BJS 2.0 knocked out SMW champ DeGale in the gym, gave SMW champ Groves nightmares in the gym too. Groves stopped Jamie Cox who sparked Badou Jack in sparring and also bashed up Degale, and Badou Jack is a champ at both SMW and LHW. So there you have it irrefutable proof that BJS 2.0 can become a 3 weight world champion. Facts.

'Question: Is George Groves a tougher opponent for Chris Eubank Jr than Billy Joe Saunders was in 2014?

Adam Booth: “Groves is more dangerous but less tricky. Billy Joe is not as easy to get to as George. Once George stops punching, he’s not difficult to get to, whereas Billy Joe is difficult to get to whether he’s punching or not punching.


“For Eubank Jr, the Billy Joe Saunders loss doesn’t look so bad now because of what Billy Joe has gone on to do. Also, I’ve been around Billy Joe. I’ve seen him spar Groves and he gave Groves nightmares. I know what Billy Joe is about. Given Eubank’s lack of experience in the amateurs, he did well to make the Saunders fight as close as it was.”

Q: Is Eubank Jr the toughest fight, stylistically, for Groves?

AB: “In terms of difficulty, Eubank is tougher than anyone Groves has boxed. If he can’t keep Eubank on the end of that long jab, the fight is incredibly hard for Groves and Eubank will be the hardest opponent he has fought.

“A lot depends on whether Groves can control the distance and whether he’s emotionally and technically competent enough when he can’t control the distance. But they are both wrong for each other. Eubank is potentially going to be hit harder than he ever has been hit. I don’t think George will be hit harder than he ever has been hit, but, if he allows Eubank to claim that space, he will certainly be hit more than he’s ever been hit.”