Chris Eubank Jnr will wake up this morning, look in the mirror and probably ask himself if he fought the right fight last night.
The Brighton fighter lost for the second time in his career, his other defeat coming against Billy Joe Sanders, but didn?t really do himself justice in a fight whereby the more experienced, at a higher level, Groves, controlled the direction the fight too.
However, speaking to the media afterwards, Eubank Jnr had a lot to reflect upon.
Talking about the verdict, Eubank Jnr remarked to the media,
?Of course I am disappointed.
?This is boxing. It was a good fight. I thought I did enough to nick it, but George had a good game plan. I hope he?s OK. He?s in the hospital now. Did I underestimate him a little bit? Maybe. Did size come into it? Yeah, I felt the size difference. I thought I was getting a lot of shots inside. He caught me with a few jabs here and there. I guess that was enough to win some of the rounds.?
Eubank also thought Groves should have had points deducted after several clashes of heads, remarking,
?George head-butted me a lot of times in the fight.
?I don?t know how he didn?t get points taken away from him. This is 101 combat. You do what you have to do and that?s what he did.?
Although it is probably fair to say the manner in which Eubank rushed in did him no favours with Groves able to tuck his head down to cover up.
Continuing, Eubank commented on the fact Groves picked up a performance affecting injury in the last round, before also paying his opponent a rare compliment, further adding,
?I didn?t know his shoulder was dislocated.
?He isn?t the same fighter he was when we had the sparring sessions.?
And on his own injury, the cut eye, Eubank Jnr had this to say,
?I couldn?t see out of my right eye most of the fight, and the cut effected my style.
?I resorted to loading up, because every time he would move to my right, I couldn?t see him. So I would start to throw big punches. Technically he did the right thing. He negated some of my work early on. But towards the later rounds, I was hitting him with a lot of shots.?
Eubank Jnr will come again but whether he?ll get the re-match he wants or drops back down to middleweight remains to be seen.
Eubank Jnr Reflects on Loss to Groves
