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| Date | 17 February 2018 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Venue | Manchester Arena, Manchester | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Title(s) on the line | WBA (Super) super middleweight title | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tale of the tape | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Result | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Groves defeated Eubank Jr. by Unanimous Decision | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
George Groves vs. Chris Eubank Jr. was a professional boxing match contested on 17 February 2018, for the WBA Super Middleweight championship. [1]
After winning their respective quarter final bouts in October 2017, George Groves and Chris Eubank Jr. were matched against each other in the semi-final of the World Boxing Super Series. Promoter Kalle Sauerland stated he would try to book the fight for a stadium in either London or Manchester and in November 2017, ITV reported the fight was set to take place on 17 February 2018 at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, then Europe’s largest purpose-built indoor arena. [2] [3] [4] Tickets for the fight sold out in seven minutes. [5] [6] This would be Groves' first fight at the Manchester Arena since his first fight with Carl Froch in November 2013.
Groves weighed 167 pounds, a full pound under the weight limit and Eubank came in at 167.5 pounds. [7] [8] Both boxers were set to earn a base purse of £1.5 million, which could increase thanks to sponsorship and PPV sales. [9]
Eubank Jr. was a 8/13 favourite to win. [10]
Groves, the bigger man in the ring, used his jab to control the fight after a cagey round and mostly fought on the back foot, occasionally landing the big shot. An accidental clash of heads caused Eubank to receive a cut on the side of his right eye in round 3. The big cut was dealt with by his corner after the round, but as the fight went on to the later rounds, blood was seen flowing expeditiously. Many thought Eubank's cutman was inadequate in his attempt to stop the cut, Eubank later said he struggled to see out the eye. The fight was riddled with a lot of clinches and unclean punches from both boxers. Groves would suffer a dislocated shoulder in round 12. Nethertheless at the end of the 12th round, all three judges scored the fight for Groves with scores of 117-112, 116-112 and 115-113. [11] [12] [13]
After the fight, Groves said, “It was about who wanted it most, I think, and I obviously wanted it most. The jab was landing correctly all night. When he had success, it was because I did something wrong. He was strong, he was aggressive, but that obviously wasn’t enough tonight.” Eubank replied, “I thought it was close. I thought I did enough in the later rounds to win the fight, but it was a close fight. And all credit to George. You know, this is all part of boxing. You win some and you lose some. Hopefully we can get a rematch. It was enough of a good fight to have another one.” [14] [15] [16] Punch stats showed that Groves landed 117 of 398 punches thrown (29%) and Eubank landed 92 of his 421 thrown (22%).
Four days after the fight it was revealed Groves didn't fight for Eubank Jr.'s IBO title after failing to agree on sanctioning fees with the IBO's president Ed Levine, thus it became vacant. [17] [18]
Confirmed bouts: [19]
James Frederick DeGale is a British former professional boxer who competed from 2009 to 2019. He held the IBF super-middleweight title twice between 2015 and 2018, and regionally the European and British super-middleweight titles between 2010 and 2012.
Christopher Livingstone Eubank Jr. is a British professional boxer. He is the son of former two-division world champion boxer, Chris Eubank.
James Simon Russan, best known as Jamie Cox, is a British former professional boxer who competed from 2007 to 2018. who held the Commonwealth light-middleweight title from 2011 to 2012. As an amateur, he won a gold medal at the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
George Groves is a British former professional boxer who competed from 2008 to 2018. He held the WBA (Super) super-middleweight title from 2017 to 2018. At regional level, he held multiple super-middleweight titles, including the European, British, and Commonwealth titles between 2010 and 2014. As an amateur, Groves won the ABA middleweight title twice in 2007 and 2008.
Yuniel Dorticós Pao is a Cuban professional boxer. He is a former cruiserweight world champion, having held the WBA (Regular) title from 2017 to 2018 and the IBF title from 2019 to 2020.
Callum John Smith is an English professional boxer. He held the World Boxing Association (WBA) and Ring magazine super-middleweight titles from 2018 to 2020. At regional level, he held the British and European super-middleweight titles between 2015 and 2017. In 2018 he won the World Boxing Super Series super-middleweight tournament, winning the Muhammad Ali trophy in the process. He is the youngest of the Smith brothers—Paul, Stephen, and Liam—all of whom are professional boxers.
Renold Vatubua Quinlan is an Australian boxer of Indigenous and Fijian descent. Best known for knocking out former world champion Daniel Geale, Quinlan held the IBO super-middleweight title from 2016 to 2017.
Erik Skoglund is a Swedish professional boxer.
Avni Yıldırım is a Turkish professional boxer. He challenged for the WBC super-middleweight title in 2019, and the WBA (Super), WBC, and Ring magazine super-middleweight titles in 2021.
The 2017–18 World Boxing Super Series – super middleweight division was a World Boxing Super Series professional boxing tournament taking place between September 2017 and September 2018 in several countries. The Super Series features 8 top-rated super middleweight boxers in a single-elimination tournament. Its winner will hold the WBA's world title, The Ring Magazine title, as well as the Muhammad Ali trophy. The tournament was organized by Comosa AG. A cruiserweight tournament is held concurrently, with prize money for both competitions totalling US$50 million.
ITV Box Office was a pay-per-view channel from ITV plc launched in February 2017, and ceased operations in January 2020. The channel was available in HD-only on Sky, and events were also available on demand only on Virgin Media (UK) and TVPlayer. It was the only ITV channel that was broadcast in Ireland on Sky.
Vincent Feigenbutz is a German professional boxer. He held the WBA (Regular) super-middleweight title in 2016 and challenged for the IBF super-middleweight title in 2020.
Yunier Dorticos vs. Dmitry Kudryashov was a professional boxing match contested on September 23, 2017, for the WBA (Regular) cruiserweight championship.
Callum Smith vs. Erik Skoglund was a professional boxing match contested on 16 September 2017.
Chris Eubank Jr vs. Avni Yildirim was a professional boxing match contested on 7 October 2017, for the IBO super middleweight championship. The bout was also a WBC super middleweight title eliminator.
George Groves vs. Jamie Cox was a professional boxing match contested on 14 October 2017, for the WBA super middleweight championship.
Jürgen Brähmer vs. Robert Brant was a professional boxing match contested on 27 October 2017.
Callum Smith vs. Nieky Holzken was a professional boxing match contested on 24 February 2018.
George Groves vs. Callum Smith was a professional boxing match contested on 28 September 2018, for the WBA and The Ring Super Middleweight championship.
Murat Gassiev vs. Yuniel Dorticos was a professional boxing match contested on 3 February 2018, for the WBA and IBF cruiserweight championship.
