By Shaun Brown
As George Groves embarks on another fighter/trainer relationship, this time with Shane McGuigan, the British super middleweight claims one of his previous coaches, Adam Booth, “abandoned him”.
Groves was speaking at a press conference today (Thursday, December 17) in London to formally announce his January 30 fight against Andrea Di Luisa at the Copper Box Arena.
Groves, 27, will hope that McGuigan and promoters Sauerland can remove the bridesmaid tag in 2016, that would see him win his first world title having challenged three times in two years.
Speaking to Sky Sports after the press conference Groves spoke about the split, something that has never been greatly discussed, with Adam Booth.
“I asked Paddy [Fitzpatrick] to train me for the first Froch fight when I was 10 weeks out when I had a bust-up with Adam Booth. My one pro coach had abandoned me as he had done time and time before! But this time he did it just before a world title fight which was hard to swallow. I thought ‘Alright I don’t need you any more I’ll move on. I can either train myself or go with a trainer I have a previous relationship with,' which was Paddy.
“We had a good fight. Didn’t quite go our way but we bounced to the next fight and the next fight and as I said before I think I ended up papering over cracks rather than addressing real situations.
"Paddy’s a great coach, he’s got a wealth of experience but he was never going to be able to get the best out of me and as time went on we both realised it. But we were both trying to force situations to prove ourselves right and everyone else wrong. Enough was enough.”
The former British, Commonwealth and European 12st champion said he had always intended to make the fight against WBC champion Badou Jack his last camp with Fitzpatrick.
“I wasn’t going to have another fight with Paddy after the Badou Jack fight and the romantic ending would’ve been a win and I would’ve said ‘Well done Paddy you’ve trained a world champion but we’re going to part ways and I’m going to find someone to train me who can get the best out of me’. We came very close to doing that.”
Groves admitted it was a tough decision but now joins McGuigan, who also trains the likes of IBF World super bantamweight champion Carl Frampton, rising stars Josh Taylor, Conrad Cummings, Anto Cacace, Josh Pritchard and was recently hired to train David Haye for his heavyweight comeback which begins on January 16.
“There’s not that many good, reputable boxing coaches in the world let alone in London or the UK,” said Groves.
“It was [a] tough decision but enough time had passed and enough things have gone wrong that needed to make a change and I think I’ve made a change for the better.”
Shaun Brown is Boxing Scene’s UK News Editor. Follow him on Twitter @sbrown2pt0. Contact him at sbrownboxing@gmail.com
