George Groves vs. Denis Douglin Is a Dangerous and Cynical Mismatch
Two months ago, George Groves rebounded from his heavy KO loss to Carl Froch in good fashion by outpointing Christopher Rebrasse over 12 rounds to win the European super-middleweight title.
That win shored up Groves's position in the rankings and the talk after the fight was about when he would again challenge for a world title, given his good standing with the WBC and that he shares a promoter with WBO belt-holder Arthur Abraham.
But instead of returning to the top level, Groves is taking a major step backwards on Saturday when he fights the American club fighter Denis Douglin, who has fought most of his career a weight below at middleweight, with a padded record of 17-3.
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Bleacher Report's Briggs Seekins previously wrote that 2014 "has started to look a little bit like 'The Year of the Mismatch'," but that has largely been an American phenomenon with the Showtime network broadcasting a series of sub-par contests involving fighters signed with power-broker extraordinaire Al Haymon.
Now Britain has its own leading candidate for that hall of shame. While George Groves is universally ranked in the top 10, generally around fifth or sixth, Douglin is not ranked by any governing body and is down at 45th on BoxRec's computerised rankings.
If anything 45th is generous given that Douglin's best win at super-middleweight came against Charles Whittaker, a 40-year-old from that boxing capital of the Cayman Islands. He had already lost 15 times, including three of his previous five, and he weighed in at 158.5 pounds i.e. inside the middleweight limit.
And although Whittaker had previously been stopped seven times, Douglin could only beat him on points after 10 rounds, despite outweighing him by more than half a stone (seven pounds) on the scales.
Douglin himself has fought his biggest fights at 154, light-middleweight, two classes below Groves. That was where he met the only big-name opponent of his career—Jermell Charlo in 2012—who knocked him out in five. He has also lost to the virtually unknown Jose Angel Rodriguez and Doel Carrasquillo, the latter of whom had lost more fights than he'd won, and yet stopped Douglin in Round 3.
A guy with that kind of record simply should not be sharing a ring with Groves. Revisiting the mismatch of the year—Danny Garcia vs. Rod Salka—shows exactly why.
Salka, like Douglin, an overmatched and undersized opponent, could do little to stop the hard-hitting Garcia teeing off at will. He was dropped twice early in the second round before the champion connected with a wide left hand that knocked Salka out, his head bouncing off the canvas in concerning fashion.
The referee stopped the fight without a count and called for the doctors. Perhaps he could have stopped the fight after the second knock down, but the reality is that the fight should never have been held in the first place.
Salka thankfully returned this weekend with a win in his real weight division, lightweight, but the way he was ruthlessly dispatched by Garcia in a totally one-sided contest could easily have had serious consequences and cut short his career.
That night was particularly grim viewing and although Groves-Douglin is not quite on that level, given that Groves is a top-5 guy rather than the top guy, it's not far off.
Groves, like Garcia, is a serious hitter himself, having knocked down and repeatedly hurt Carl Froch, one of the sport's toughest men, as well as ending future world-title challenger Paul Smith inside two rounds.
As in the Salka case, there is simply no way one can imagine Douglin winning this fight. He doesn't even have a puncher's chance, having never stopped a competent opponent. The bookmakers know it with no sportsbook offering better than an astonishing 80/1 on against Groves, per Odds Shark.
This raises the very good question of why this fight is happening, given it will do nothing to further the Londoner's career.
Go back to a news snippet from Charles Sale in The Daily Mail on October 15:
"The word within boxing is that Sky Sports overlord Barney Francis has been personally ringing fighters George Groves and David Haye, encouraging them to be part of the Sky pay-per-view bill at Liverpool’s Echo Arena on November 22.
The main attraction that night is the rematch between Nathan Cleverly and Tony Bellew, a non-major title fight. It is unusual for Sky to demand extra money from subscribers for such a bout — hence the alleged involvement of Francis in beefing up the undercard.
"
Eight days later on October 23, news broke that Groves-Douglin had been added to the show. In an interview with IFL TV on October 25, promoter Eddie Hearn admitted that "when we made the announcement [that Cleverly-Bellew II would be pay-per-view], I was getting loads and loads of flak, probably only 20-30 percent positive, if that."
This was hardly surprising given that only last year both Cleverly and Bellew were easily knocked out at world level (by Sergey Kovalev and Adonis Stevenson, respectively), when their first fight was hardly a classic and when neither man is even the best British fighter at the weight—step forward Ola Afolabi. It is very difficult to see what makes this a pay-per-view fight.
As Hearn himself said, though, "With the Groves announcement last week, it [fan reaction to the Cleverly-Bellew PPV] switched completely to 80 percent positive." You can factor in an element of promoter's hyperbole there but there's no doubt that among people who know very little about boxing, the addition of Groves-Douglin to the show is seen as a boost.
Hearn is able to advertise the show as featuring Groves and James DeGale, which would be one hell of an undercard bout—were they fighting each other. People who have never heard of Douglin because they have never heard of lots of fighters, rather than because Douglin is a non-entity, will believe they are getting a fight worth watching.
The reality is that Sky Sports and Hearn's Matchroom Sport are using George Groves' name to prop up a substandard pay-per-view, not least at the premium price of £16.95, with Denis Douglin crossing the Atlantic to be the unfortunate sacrifice at their temple of Mammon.
Thus the conclusion can only be that Groves vs. Douglin is a dangerous and cynical mismatch. It is a shame that the British Board of Boxing Control saw fit to sanction it because it will do nothing to enhance the sport's reputation.
All fighter records from BoxRec.
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