The Saint in Nevada

Although this appears to be one of the best weekends in boxing in quite a while, numerous world title fights and eliminators around the globe with possibly the most stacked card in quite some time it's also the first week after Sky's “Friday Night Fights”. British talent will miss it until Sky starts again with a Saturday night show, hopefully bringing big time boxing back to Sky Sports on a regular basis. Though it needs to be said that John Lewis Dickinson was upset last week due to a nasty swelling below his left eye which saw the former Prizefighter winner pulled out. Whilst Craig McEwan's trainer Freddie Roach said he thought “We had lost” whilst most thought Tony Jeffries should have lost to Michael Banbula.

So moving on to this week and the excellent Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino card headlined by the rematch between Juan Manuel Marquez and Juan Diaz it seems only fitting that the prospect of the week is fighting on that very undercard. With many of the fighters on the card being too advanced to really be considered prospects, such as Dmitry Pirog and Daniel Jacobs (who meet in a battle for the WBO Middleweight crown) and Jorge Linares (who whilst aged 24 has been a 2-weight champion already) it seems only fair to talk about the young fighter making his US debut. George “The Saint” Groves is arguably the hottest young fighter in Britain and looks to try and his name to the long and illustrious list of great Super Middleweights from the UK.

Although Groves, 22 year old from Hammersmith may not have got the Olympic success of fierce rival and former gym buddy James “Chunky” DeGale many are picking the Hayemaker managed Frank Maloney promoted fighter as the better fighter, and with good reason. A two time British ABA Middleweight champion, who as a kid held the more experienced DeGale to 50-50 sparring sessions and actually beat him in '06 as he piled up a 66-10 (40) amateur record.

Groves would sign a professional deal with the fledgling Hayemaker Promotions in 2008 and as DeGale was in China winning Olympic gold Groves was preparing for his professional debut which came only months later on the under card of David Hayes contest with Monte Barrett. It was a relatively low key debut for Groves who was comfortably down the card scoring a point victory over Kirilas Psonko unlike DeGales's debut 3 months later which was a hugely hyped event that saw DeGale booed due to running his mouth. Over the following 12 months Groves would be kept busy fighting regularly in contests against more experienced fighters. He would string together 5 straight stoppages, beating the likes of solid British fighter Paul Samuels, an the usually durable Romaric Hignard from France.

Groves' first high profile bout came on the undercard of David Haye's contest with Nikolay Valuev for the WBA Heavyweight title. In Germany (his first fight outside of the UK) Groves would clearly out point the very durable Belarussian Kanstantsin Makhankau (who despite taking a record of 15-18 into the bout had only been stopped once) over 8 rounds. Though it was his most recent fight that really showed how good Groves is, stopping the well regarded George Adamu in the 6th round of an utterly one sided battle which had seen the tough Ghana born fighter down 3 times. The win saw Groves winning the Commonwealth Super Middleweight title in just his 9th fight as a professional.

In his upcoming fight “The Saint” meets Alfredo Contreras from the boxing hotbed of Los Mochis, Mexico who is as good a yard stick as you can get. Contreras has been in with Craig McEwan, David Lemieux, Anthony Dirrell (brother of Andre) and Sebastien Demers. Although Groves is expected to win comfortably, a stoppage will have him further proving his credentials and putting him further ahead of DeGale in the race to a world title.

On the card we also get one of the hottest young Americans in Frankie Gomez an 18 year old star in the making who is worth keeping an eye on if you get a chance.

Only 1 interesting prospect fight...shame

Last weekend saw the battle of the prospects, several enticing and interesting bouts featuring prospect v prospect such as Lanard Lane's contest with Mike Dallas Jr and Shawn Porter v Ray Robinson so we'll take a quick look at the round up of them before we look at a less interesting weekend.

Results from Friday night:
Matty Askin WTKO1 Lee Kellet
Scott Quigg WTKO9 Gavin Reid
Fernando Guerrero WUD10 Ishe Smith
Shawn Porter WUD10 Ray Robinson (in a really brilliant match that's well worth watching)
Lanard Lane LUD8 Mike Dallas Jr (in a bout where Dallas' hand speed really impressed me)
Sadam Ali WTKO3 Julius Edmonds (Ali was also impressive)
Alex Perez WUD8 Edvan Dos Santos Barros

Saturday night:
Raymond Serrano WMD8 Ayi Bruce

So to this week, which sadly lacks the true prospect v prospect fight and instead has more easy learning fights. Firstly the high profile Tony Jeffries, one of the British Olympians from the 2008 Beijing games makes his 8th appearance as a professional, the popular Mackem has an easy nights work on paper against the British based Pole Michael Banbula (10-25-3). Jeffries is expected to win though it's worth noting that Banbula, who has no stoppages, has only been stopped 3 times in his career and is coming in on the back of an impressive victory over Tony Oakey, the former British and Commonwealth Light Heavyweight champion.

On the same card we also have to keep an eye out for 2 other fighters, the first is unbeaten (7-0) 22 year old Martin Ward who faces a really tough test in experienced Andy Bell a former British super flyweight champion. Though Bell is by far more experienced he's jumping up to fight at featherweight against a younger stronger fighter who has the bit between his teeth. The fight on paper looked interesting until you realise that Bells 11-7 record features 4 straight losses in his last 4 fights.

The one that interests me the most personally however is the unbeaten Cruiserweight Jon Lewis Dickinson who hopes to emulate local hero Glenn McCrory and win a world Cruiserweight title. Stood at 6'4'' he's a fighter with huge potential and has made a solid start to his career and at just 24 he's coming into his physical prime. Although not long a pro (only turning in November '08) he has managed several note worthy wins in an unbeaten 8 fight career which has swiftly seen him rated inside the top 10 British Cruiserweights (both Boxrec.com and Boxing News magazine rate him at #6 in Britain). Although on Friday he has a relatively soft test against Tyrone Wright (8-4-2) he has managed to win the “Prizefighter” tournament on Sky Sports and currently holds wins over Paul Bonson, Hastings Rasanai, Mark Krence and 2 wins over Nick Okoth not bad for a novice.

In the USA we probably see the best match up with Scottish born Craig McEwan (18-0) meeting the very reliable and experienced Danny Perez (34-7). Perez doesn't usually lose to bad fighters having recently been out pointed by Erislandy Lara and suffering 2 losses to Antonio Margarito. McEwan has been touted around an awful lot, a top class amateur who's now signed to Golden Boy Promotions has struggled to get these sorts of solid tests and it's probably with good reason. Although he has been highly hyped as Scotland's new star the Hollywood based fighter he has yet to truly impress many of those that are impartial and his split decision victory against Darnell Boone in summer '06 saw him getting a rather lucky victory over a solid journeyman type.
Although Perez is stepping up in weight and lacks pop in his punches don't be surprised if McEwan needs to judges to rescue him.

Although after 24 fights it's not fair to call him a prospect the Iceman Vernon Paris intends to stretch his record. Paris is 21-0 with 3 no contests on his record and aged 22 it's time for him to take the sport seriously or get out. Annoyingly he's scuppered his career with drug offences and out the ring altercations which has seen him shot 3 times and stabbed, despite this he's lighting fast and a talented fighter well worth watching for a few rounds. Sadly last time out against Juan Santiago he seemed to fade very quickly and after the midway point seemed to run more than punch. Paris fights 21-6 Courtney Burton in what could well be Paris' toughest assignment so far, though if he's prepared he should go to 22-0-0-3.

Some other fighters fighting during the week:
Australian fighter and highly touted prospect Lenny Zappavinga faces Billy Sumba. For my money Zappa is living on borrowed time and was comfortably beaten by Fernando Angulo in my eyes (Zappa won the bout on the scorecards to go 23-0). Also in Australia Brad Pitt continues his professional career after a successful 2006 Commonwealth games (in which he won Gold). Pitt is currently 4-0 (3) and faces Oscar Siale (12-5) in what is a solid step up in class.