By Chris LaBate
British/Commonwealth super middleweight champion George Groves sparred with world ranked Andre Dirrel in preparation for this past Saturday's clash with domestic rival James DeGale. He said the sparring helped him a lot with the big majority decision win. He feels Dirrell is much better than DeGale in every category. After twelve rounds, Groves said DeGale is a very dirty fighter and hit him with his head and used a lot of elbows to open up the cuts on his forehead and eye.
"We treated this fight like I was fighting Dirrell, who does everything better than DeGale. Lucky for me my forehead is tough, it took some solid butts and I took some solid elbows on the chin, [DeGale] is a dirty fighter. He got away with it and you have to respect him in that respect. I learned from the Anderson fight that you have to stick to your game plan. I put it into practice and he was clueless. The blood flowed in my eyes. I couldn’t really see but it was OK," Groves told BoxingScene.com's Terence Dooley.
