By Luke Furman
Former two-division world champion David Haye believes super middleweight contender George Groves, only 26-years-old, has more than enough time to rebuild his career and become a world champion.
This past Saturday night, before 80,000 fans at Wembley Stadium, Carl Froch knocked out Groves with a perfect right hand in the eight round.
Haye himself suffered a TKO defeat at the age of 24 and bounced back to unify three titles in the cruiserweight division and captured a world title at heavyweight.
"He's 26-years-old...so what he lost. It happens to the best of us. I lost when I was 24 and it didn't stop me from two years later coming back and becoming a world champion. It happens. You come back and you learn from it," Haye said.
"It takes some rebuilding, but he can be rebuilt. He's a very mentally strong, young guy. He's a fighting person. He was a kickboxing champion when he was a teenager. He knows what it's like to be knocked down and hurt. He comes back."
Haye used to promote Groves under his Hayemaker promotional banner and the two boxers are also former stablemates under trainer Adam Booth.
Luke Furman covers boxing for bokser.org.