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George Groves vs Chris Eubank Jr.


Due to winning their respective bouts in October 2017, Eubank and George Groves (27-3, 20 KOs) were due to meet in the semi final of the tournament. At first, promoter Kalle Sauerland stated he would try to book the fight for a stadium in either London or Manchester. In November 2017, ITV reported the fight was set to take place on 17 February 2018 at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, Europe’s largest purpose-built indoor arena. The winner of the fight would earn his place in the final of the tournament as well as walk out with the WBA (Super) and IBO super-middleweight titles. Tickets for the fight sold out in seven minutes. Groves weighed 167 pounds, a full pound under the weight limit and Eubank came in at 167.5 pounds.




Groves secured his place in the final of the tournament after defeating Eubank over 12 rounds. The judges scored the fight 117-112, 116-112 and 115-113 for Groves. 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. The fight was riddled with a lot of clinches and unclean punches from both boxers. Groves retained his WBA title but did not claim Eubank's IBO title as he did not pay their sanctioning fees. Groves also suffered a dislocated shoulder in round 12. It was said that Groves weighed around 184 pounds on fight night.




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." Punch stats showed that Groves landed 117 of 398 punches thrown (29%) and Eubank landed 92 of his 421 thrown (22%). Many pundits and former boxers stated Eubank should move forward and hire a trainer. Both boxers earned a base purse of £1.5 million, which could increase due to sponsorship and PPV sales. Four days after the fight it was revealed Groves didn't fight for the IBO belt after failing to agree on sanctioning fees with the IBO's president Ed Levine.