George Groves vs. Chris Eubank Jr – Official weights

Boxingnews24.com

By Tim Royner: With one day to go before their important fight in the World Boxing Super Series tournament, George Groves and Chris Eubank Jr. both weighed in successfully on Friday for their fight this Saturday night at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England.

WBA Super World super middleweight champion Groves (28-3, 20 KOs) weighed in at 167.1 pounds. Groves looked lean and drained at the weight. 167 is well below what the 29-year-old Groves will be on Saturday night.

It’s possible that Groves will be well into the 180s by the time he meets the 28-year-old Eubank Jr. inside the ring tomorrow night. Groves has been looking thin all this week in slowly losing water weight to make weight. For his part, Eubank Jr. weighed at 167.6 lbs. He looks close to the weight he’ll be at for the fight.

It wouldn’t be surprising if Eubank Jr. only adds another 5 to 7 lbs. of water weight in rehydrating tonight. Eubank Jr. is not a big fighter for super middleweight. He’s not meant for the 168 lb. weight class. He’s even small for the middleweight division as well. There are much bigger middleweights than Eubank Jr. such as Jermall Charlo and Daniel Jacobs. If things don’t work out for Eubank Jr. on Saturday night, he might want to consider moving down to middleweight and give it a proper go in this weight class. Eubank Jr. didn’t really test himself against the best on a consistent basis during the 5 years that he fought in that division from 2011 to 2016.

The Groves-Eubank Jr. stare down was intense after both had weighed in. Groves looked like he wanted to belt Eubank Jr. right then and there. Eubank Jr. was doing a lot of grinning, as if he knows he’s going to win the fight on Saturday. Eubank Jr. looked very confident, which is natural for him. That’s the way Eubank Jr. He was the same way when he fought Billy Joe Saunders and ended up losing to him. I don’t think Eubank Jr. will ever change in that respect. If it’s false confidence that Eubank Jr. is showing, then he’s doing a good acting job.

Eubank Jr. is going to need to be able to have the talent to overcome Groves power, body punching, experience and ring IQ in this fight. Just being confident isn’t enough. There are plenty of fighters that are confident before the punches are thrown, but once they get out there, they get found out. We might see the same thing with Eubank Jr. if he can’t take the big shots Groves will be bouncing off his chin and the hard body shots.

Groves thinks Eubank Jr. is going to try and beat him with his high work rate the way he’s been doing with most of his opponents during his career. It’s possible that Eubank Jr. will slow his work rate down to stay out of the way of Groves’ hard body shots. Against Arthur Abraham, Eubank Jr. boxed him from the outside to avoid getting hit.