Super-confident challenger George Groves has vowed to knock out champion Carl Froch with a left hook tonight at Wembley.
Froch, known as the Cobra, defends his International Boxing Federation (IBF) and regular WBA super-middleweight titles against Groves in one of the most eagerly anticipated rematches in boxing’s recent history.
Nottingham’s Froch, 36, won by a controversial ninth round referee’s stoppage in Manchester in November last year.
Photo: EPA
However, now Londoner Groves, 26, says he will delight the 80,000-strong crowd at the national soccer stadium in the English capital with a spectacular finish.
“It’ll be the left hook that finishes Carl Froch on Saturday night,” Groves said at the final pre-fight press conference.
“Anyone who has watched the media workouts will know we’ve been working on left hooks and the left hook will work,” he added.
Froch, a three-time super-middleweight champion fired back, claiming he had been there and done it all before.
“Hardcore boxing fans know what I’m about. When I turn up in the shape I’m in now — you’ve seen it time and time again against top, top opposition — I’ve proved I can perform at the top level,” he said.
“I mix it with the elite boxers in the world. I’m bringing that confidence and that experience with me into this fight, on top of being at absolutely unbelievable shape, which will allow me to perform at my best for the whole duration of the fight if necessary,” Froch added.
“But I’m convinced this fight won’t go the distance and that George Groves won’t hear the final bell. Because I know what I have to do and how I’m going to do it,” he said.
Groves has been rolling out the mind games in the buildup to this fight, just as he did before their original meeting.
Then, Groves constantly belittled his more illustrious foe and even gave him a taster of his tactics two days before the fight by claiming he would hit Froch with two right hands in the first round.
He did more than just that, knocking Froch down for only the second time in his career with a right hook in the first round.
Froch survived that and a torrid start to the fight, including a sixth round in which he came close to being flattened again, before referee Howard Foster controversially called the fight off as soon as Groves was in any trouble from a Froch onslaught in the ninth.
Groves, like most observers, was adamant the stoppage was premature and went to the IBF to ask that they order a rematch.
Having got that he has continued his mind games, playing with a Rubik’s cube during one press conference while Froch was talking, before making his latest prediction.
“I’m going to go out and perform on Saturday night and become world champion, and do it on the big stage looking very good doing it,” Groves said.
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