James DeGale and George Groves happened too soon.

Exactly. All this does, is allow fighters to make excuses about whether to fight this guy, that guy, as they know fans will sympathies when they talk about building the fight, where for all they knew, the fighter might not even fancy his chances, and is trying to play it off like he's trying to build something for the future, in short, it makes ducking plausible.

 

Also true. Groves in 13 fights has beaten P Samuels, C Adamu, undefeated Anderson and undefeated DeGale. I dont think though that George has had too much taken away from him yet. The Anderson fight was tough for him but I expect he has learnt and I dont think he took too many hard flush shots from DeGale but did suffer from some head clashes, but I dont think anything too serious

 

Another thing, why do fights that seem inevitable, sometimes never happen?

Chavez-Norris, Bowe-Lewis, even Tyson-Lewis was years in the making, was on one min, off the next.

The Boxing landscape changes so much, that there is no room to pick and choose.

 

I love the fact how Degale is now the 1 chasing Groves for another fight. Brilliant. He probably wont come out of hiding for about 3 months.

 

I dont know how different it would of been had they stayed apart to be honest, cause De Gale has never been tough, not before the Groves fight anyway, where as Groves has in comparison to De Gale, so I'd anticipate Groves will use this spring board to move foward quicker, as he's probably reaffirmed the faith his team have in him from beating someone of De Gale's perceived caliber.

I think Groves is going down the Haye route, fighting higher caliber of fighters earlier in his career. Also, who's to say Groves wants a long career, he might want to make his money, make his mark, get out.

 

Nah, we hear all this ''let's build it'' bollocks all the time.

Prospects should be matched against each other in between facing good journeymen and contenders to help them improve.

At the minute there's too many ''prospects'' that aren't any good making too much money fighting bums, and far too many contenders having to take short notice fights against good opponents for next to nothing.

Fights like these help to redress that balance, separate the men from the boys. Not every pair of unbeaten ex-amateur stars can be kept apart and end up producing one of the greatest fights of all time like Leonard vs Hearns I, featuring two of the greatest fighters of all time.

It just doesn't work like that, boxing doesn't make them like that anymore because the best fighters don't fight the best fighters often enough.

 

Prospects should fight each other as well as learning fights against faded contenders/journeyman.

Then the best prospects go forward, and the losers get an early inkling of what changes they have to make. It would make for better fighters if the best prospects all faced off with each other.

 

I don't know why people are saying "hard fights" like this shorten careers, There where hardly any punches landed, it makes a future fight all the more interesting.... It will if anything, have done them both some good. :happy

 

I agree BB.

I actually prefer these kind of fights to big headline cards, cause half the time, you get Winky-B Hop, I mean who wanted that fight to happen? Jones-Calzaghe, Harrison-Haye, Mosley-Pacquiao.


Look at Don Curry fighting Marlon Starling after his 15th fight, or Whitaker fighting J L Ramirez after how many fights, Holyfield fighting Qawi after how many fights, Fenech, that's how it should be. Who wants to see a fighter do a Ricky Hatton? have x amount of fights against fighters who have about a million one chance of beating him, to eventually step up to world class and struggle, then cash out against the best?

 

This fight happened at exactly the right time.

 

Maybe he just consolidates for a bit? I dont see what harm that would do, its only what he might of been doing had he not fought De Gale, so I dont see a problem there.

To me, Groves, if he does't step up again in his next 3/4 fights, will only be doing what he would of done had he not fought De Gale, so the status quo is the same imo.