George Groves vs. Fedor Chudinov – Results

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By Scott Gilfoid: George Groves (26-3, 19 KOs) scored a 6th round knockout win over a very slow former world champion Fedor Chudinov (14-2, 10 KOs) to win the WBA Super World super middleweight title in front of a packed house full of 27,000 screaming fans at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, England.

Groves, 29, nailed Chudinov with a big right hand in the 6th that badly hurt him. Groves then poured it on in unloading a storm of power shots to the head of the Russian Chudinov until the referee had to step in and stop the fight with Chudinov stoill on his feet. The fight should have gone on a little bit longer just to see if Chudinov could somehow recover. The referee didn’t want to take any chances obviously because Chudinov was just standing there and taking shots without holding. He was too hurt to think clearly that he needed to hold.

Groves was struggling with the pressure and the power shots that Chudinov was hitting him with in rounds 1 through 4. Chudinov hurt Groves with a right to the head in the 1st round that clearly shook him up. However, after that round, Chudinov didn’t land anything hard enough to bother Groves. Chudinov’s glacially slow hand speed made it easy for Groves to brace each time he would throw shots. Groves was own worst enemy because he was stressed out, looking very nervous and throwing too many shots instead of relaxing and fighting smart.

Groves suffered a bad cut over his left eye in round 4 from a clash of heads. Groves fought desperately from that point on in going after Chudinov’s body with hard shots that hurt him badly. Groves had Chudinov hurt at least 2 times in the 4th. Chudinov couldn’t take the body shots very well.

In round 5, Groves looked a little tired, as he slowed the pace and took a lot of heavy shots to the head from Chudinov. However, it was still Groves in command of the round with his faster power shots to the head and body. Chudinov looked worn out from the big punches he was taking.
Chudinov fought the best fight that he could, but he lacked the hand speed to compete tonight. Groves was too fast for him. Once Groves figured out that Chudinov couldn’t handle taking body shots, the fight was pretty much over at that point.

Groves nailed Chudinov with hard shots to the body form round 4 until stopping him in the 6th with a flurry of punches to the head. Chudinov was lucky that he was knocked out in a clinical fashion because that was the likely end result if Groves didn’t get tired from hitting him with big punches to the head. Chuidiov will have to rebuild after this loss. I don’t know what he can do. Chudinov’s lackl of hand speed is going to be a problem for him no matter what. He’s going to struggle in his career unless he can pick up some speed somewhere, which I highly doubt.

If Chudinov had a little more hand speed, I think he would have given the 29-year-old Groves HUGE problems tonight. This was the ideal fight for Groves to be fighting a limited guy like Chudinov instead of someone that would give him problems like Callum Smith and Anthony Dirrell. I don’t know if Groves could handle the punching power of those two, but I guess we won’t find out anytime soon. Those fighters are in a different lane right now in fighting for the vacant WBA super middleweight title in September.

If Groves can hold onto the WBA title long enough to fight the winner of the Dirrell vs. Smith fight, we could see a nice fight in 2018 or 2019. It’ll depend on how much interest Dirrell has in fighting the winner of that fight. Groves was in no hurry at all to give DeGale a rematch after beating him in 2011. If Groves takes the same attitude about not fighting the winner of the Smith-Dirrell fight, then he might be able to milk his WBA title for a while against soft opposition. I’m hoping that’s not the kind of champion Groves is.

All in all, it was a so-so performance from Groves. Yeah, Groves got the win tonight to capture the WBA Super World 168 pound title, but he didn’t put in the kind of performance that would make me favor him over someone like Callum Smith or Anthony Dirrrell. I think those guys would be a lot of problems for Groves right now. DeGale would be a tough fight as well for Groves. It’s bad timing for DeGale to be fighting Groves right now, because he’s coming off of a grueling fight against Badou Jack earlier this year. That was not a good fight for DeGale despite it being scored a draw. DeGale has had several hard fights in a row with him fighting Badou, Lucian Bute, Rogelio Medina and Andre Dirrell.

In Groves’ previous 3 world title challenges against Carl Froch and Badoyu Jack, he failed to get the win. It’s good thing that Groves wasn’t fighting either of those guys tonight because those are tough cookies and I think they would have given Groves all he could handle tonight. Even if Froch came out of retirement, I would favor him against Groves. The reason for that is Groves is too nervous and he wears himself down with his nervous energy.

You can’t do that against a fighter like Froch, because he stayed relaxed and looks to pick his shots to try and knock you out. It would be nice to see Froch come out of retirement to fight Groves a third time. That would be a fun fight to see. They could stick it at Wembley Stadium in London, England. I bet it would fill the stadium like it did in 2014. Froch knocked Groves out in the 8th round.

Groves vs. WBO champion Gilberto Ramirez would be an interesting unification fight in the future. If Groves can hold onto his WBA title long enough for a fight against Ramirez, it would be a nice fight.