By Elliot Worsell
WHEN asked about nerves and his greatest pre-fight fear, what shocked me most was the specificity of the answer. Rather than simply saying, “My fear was losing and I was nervous because I wanted to avoid that,” George Groves, it seemed, had in his head a much clearer nightmare, never more so than before his 2011 fight against bitter rival James Degale. That, of all his fights, was one Groves couldn’t afford to lose, not with so much history between them and so many insults exchanged. Yet there are of course many ways to lose and Groves, mature enough to accept that defeat is an inevitability of his profession, therefore only wished to avoid one particular type: the first-round knockout.
He told me this years later, long after the fact, but still the fear was there in his voice. The first-round knockout, he said, was the scariest outcome he could possibly imagine, both against Degale and also in fights against Carl Froch, a man with whom he shared a similarly frosty relationship. He used words like “humiliation” when discussing it and explained that some defeats are harder than others to swallow and understand, with the knockout in round one the toughest of them all. In that scenario, there has presumably been no success whatsoever, nor even the breaking of a sweat. Instead, and with both no grounds for a rematch and a training camp as good as wasted, a boxer stopped in the first round is rendered almost mute; their voice taken away and their standing reduced in an instant, back to square one.
The scariest thing of all is that it happens; it is common. Groves knew this, of course, which is perhaps why the fear of it happening to him, as unlikely as it may have seemed, never went away. It was there when he was fighting routine six-rounders and it was there, and then some, when he was fighting men who, at least in competition terms, he claimed to hate.
George Groves stares at Carl Froch following their press conference in Manchester in 2013 (Getty Images)
That he avoided this fate can be considered one of his more minor accomplishments. Because others, some of them even better than Groves, weren’t so lucky. Fighters like Floyd Patterson, for example, who was knocked out inside a round not once but twice and by the same man: Sonny Liston. Then there was Michael Spinks, who, having dominated at light-heavyweight, found himself chinned by Mike Tyson inside a round in 1988. Amir Khan as well. He had to somehow put it all back together following a shock first-round knockout loss against Breidis Prescott in 2008. Also, Julian Jackson, arguably one of the hardest punchers in boxing history. He suffered the indignity of getting stopped inside a round by Gerald McClellan in their 1994 rematch, just as John Ruiz, who later held a heavyweight belt, was wiped out in 19 seconds by David Tua in ’96.
Now imagine getting knocked out inside a round on your professional debut.
“It was level 9.95 psychological damage,” said Michael Bentt, the former WBO heavyweight champion stopped by Jerry Jones in 1989. “The only way to deal with that is to face it. Everyone is judgmental. Everyone has an opinion. I remember one time going with my aunt to where she worked in Manhattan and she had a friend there who was a boxing fan. Every time I would see him he would be like, ‘Hey, Mike, how’s it going? When are you fighting next?’ After I got knocked out by Jerry Jones, though, I accompanied my aunt to her work and this guy gave me this look of complete f**king disdain. It was so painful for me. I couldn’t comprehend disrespect then but now I can. He was judging me.
“There’s a certain part of us as human beings which means that when someone is doing well we may root for them and celebrate them but we also resent them because we’re not doing as well. So, when I lost, it was this guy’s chance to say, ‘Yeah, turns out you don’t have it, like you said you did, my friend.’
“That’s not taught in boxing. Nobody tells you that at some point you are going to lose. When that happens, people who claim to love you will very quickly s**t on you. That is what is going to have to drive you if you can accept it. It’s ugly but it’s part of it.”
Michael Bentt in 1993 (The Ring Magazine via Getty Images)
Last weekend in Las Vegas, two boxers, Ohara Davies and Fredrick Lawson, discovered this for themselves. Davies, full of belief beforehand, was caught cold by the heavy hands of Ismael Barroso and unable to recover, whereas Lawson, hurt but still protecting himself, was “rescued” by referee Tony Weeks when under fire from Vergil Ortiz. Aside from the results (both first-round defeats), shock was the only thing they had in common. Davies was shocked by the power of his opponent, as well as how quickly his own plans unravelled, while Lawson, still able to think in a way Davies wasn’t, was shocked only to have seen his fight with Ortiz called off prematurely by a panicked official.
Now, because of this, it will be the job of both Davies and Lawson to put defeat into perspective and remind themselves that it can happen to anyone; a first-round loss can happen to anyone and, moreover, a premature stoppage can happen to anyone. In fact, one could argue that an awareness of this, on the part of both boxers and fans, is what makes a fight such an unmissable spectacle, its pervasive danger precisely what separates boxing from other sports. In those sports, after all, a loss is just that: a loss. They all look, feel and taste the same. However, in boxing, the type and timing of it is often the difference between a loss feeling like a win and a loss feeling like the end of the world.
Ismael Barroso finishes Ohara Davies in round one (Getty Images)
