One for the Boxing fans!

[Jeremy]

As you said before, Groves is great to watch. But I really would have liked to see him in with some more contenders (Bute, Bika, Abraham) first. As it is, Groves goes in as a huge underdog. Still, there's no shame in losing to Froch, and as long as he's competitive and doesn't get hurt, losing shouldn't do his career any harm. Win, and he becomes a star. Either way he'll earn bags of cash, so why not.

[KidKruger]

Either way it's a great British match-up, it will be a huge event and it's hard to imagine a boring contest.

Bika would be too much for Groves IMO, he's made of stone - but yes I agree other SMW contenders would have been better options to bring him on more gently.

Groves I'm sure will get there and take one or more belts.

BTW. De Gale must be eating his arm in frustration !! Good - I totally lost respect for DeGale when he insulted Groves' gingerness and voice before they fought, very Ill-chosen comments.

[Otta]

Yeah I'm enjoying watching DeGale's career go nowhere fast after the way he was about Groves.

[Otta]

Kel Brook to fight Vyacheslav Senchenko in October. That should be a good test for him before he finally gets to fight for a title (having missed his opportunity through injury).

[KidKruger]

Kell's getting a lot of stick for this match-up, but at least he's facing an ex-world champ !

I'd like to see Kell face Malignaggi actually because that'd be a good way of rating him without severe risk of injury.

Hopefully Carson Jobes was a blip.

[Otta]

This could be good

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/boxing/23673172

[Jeremy]

Yep, it's probably the best (or at least the most relevant) fight possible at Heavyweight right now.

Was surprised to read that Anthony Mundine (former super middleweight champ now fighting at middleweight) is taking on Shane Mosley - who is best known as a welterweight. Strange match-up...

[El Pibe]

slightly off topic, but I caught The Fighter the other day.

Though it occassionally slipped into the odd post Rocky/Raging Bull cliches, it was largely understated, sympathetic warts'n'all portrayals of Micky Ward and Dicky Eklund.

Worth a watch for boxing fans.

[Otta]

Yep, very good film which as you say, is largely gritty and "real" feeling.

[KidKruger]

Povetkin v Vlad may be a stinker I'm sad to say.

Huck gave Povetkin a serious problem and he's a cruiser weight !

So Vlad (who's had twice as many fights as Pov, against consistently more experienced opposition) should wear Pov down and KO him in 2nd half of fight.

The Fighter is a tough watch, heaven knows how they guy won titles with distractions like that !!

Speaking of Huck, huge respect to him for lining up a re-match with Arslan because many including me thought Arslsn beat Huck last time. I'd like Guillermo Jones to fight Huck - that'd be a FoY candidate surely.

[Jeremy]

Guillermo Jones tested positive for something or other... future uncertain, especially at his age...

[KidKruger]

Oh yeah I vaguely heard about Guillermo but had forgotten. I wonder if that impacted how he walked through Lebedev's punches - in that contest there was no doubting Jones's skill and balance, but the way he took punches was very strange.

[KidKruger]

So Cleverley got KO'd in R4 !

Haven't seen it yet, just read about it.

Hopefully Darren Barker can do a number on Daniel Geale tonight at MW.

[Jeremy]

Clev was only ever a paper champ. He'd fought nobody of note... this was only a matter of time.

[KidKruger]

I agree he'd fought extremely weak opponents (like the full-time nurse !).

However I hoped he'd outbox Kov, though I admit I'd not even looked-up Kov on YouTube.

[KidKruger]

Barker got the win over Geale, after a mid-fight knock-down in an uncontentious SD.

Good for him after all he's been through. His manager said he'll definitely avoid Golovkin (just like the rest of the MW world 'champs').

[Jeremy]

Gotta feel a bit sorry for Nathan, he probably thought he was 'the man' at the weight, and he just found out how far below top level he really is.

[Otta]

To be fair to him, he knew he had to take this fight to step up to the top level what with it being on American PPV TV. Unfortunately for him, he had to find out live on PPV that he's not good enough.

[Jeremy]

He can come back from this... but he needs to rebuild, get a proper trainer, and take a few fights to reestablish himself. The worst thing he could do is what Enzo Mac did after losing to Haye- get right back in there with other title contenders and find your career in ruins.

[KidKruger]

Just watched the contest on BoxNation, this Kovalev is bad news for the rest of the division. Apparently he'd had 19 KOs before this bout and 18 of those were within 3 Rds.

Not sure where Shumenov has gone these days but him, Adonis Stevenson and Hopkins (and Pascal) all have their work cut out !!

Kovalev may find himself avoided like Golovkin. Apparently Hopkins turned down Kovalev.

Lets hope Nathan can learn from this and maybe develop his power, he needs to rely on his chin less I reckon.

[Jeremy]

Bang goes the Froch/Cleverly fight then!

Clev/Enzo possibly on the cards though?

[KidKruger]

Calzaghe was ringside for the fight, I wonder how he'd have fared if it was him. My guess is a Calzaghe win on points after some hairy moments, Calzaghe's movement causing Kovalev to miss a lot - but of course we'll never really know.

Looking forward to Kovalev's next contest.

Enzo v Clev could be a good match-up, Enzo has power to 'do a Kovalev' and I'm not sure that Clev could hurt him in the same style that McKenzie and McPhilbin did. Fun domestic match-up.

[Otta]

Looks like Cleverly may not fancy starting again...

From the beeb

"I will go away and live a normal life for a bit now. Just leave boxing for a bit - it has been an intense period.

"You know six weeks into that where you want to go. Your instincts tell you if you are missing boxing, or are you going to find another career path. Who knows where my heart is going to lie?

"If I continue, I will come back and give it a go. But the background I have got and the brain I have got, do I really need to continue? It could go either way, my career."

Cleverly says he was happy with his preparations for what could be his final fight despite the defeat.

"The good thing is that I prepared well and I cannot have any regrets, because I missed training or cheated on anything," he said. "I can hold my hands up and say Kovalev took his chance."

[KidKruger]

Sounds rational.

As he sat in his corner after the stoppage as his corner attended him, you could see him say to himself the words "f*ck it".

He's got a maths degree as everyone by now knows and he could join any consultancy in a tick, he has many options which is a good place to be. He does like a tear-up so is not a pretender, I hope he makes the right decision in his mind that he's happy with.

[Otta]

I think he'll have to have another go, or he'll always wonder what if.

He should leave Frank Warren though, and see if the Hearnes can guide him better. Okay so Warren got him to a world title, but his career has been a bit of a joke and he's wasted 2 or 3 years.