George Groves vs. Chris Eubank Jr.

George Groves vs. Chris Eubank Jr. was a professional boxing match contested on 17 February 2018, for the WBA Super Middleweight championship.

Background
After winning their respective quarter final bouts in October 2017, George Groves and Chris Eubank Jr. were matched against each other in the semi-final of the World Boxing Super Series. Promoter Kalle Sauerland stated he would try to book the fight for a stadium in either London or Manchester and in November 2017, ITV reported the fight was set to take place on 17 February 2018 at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, then Europe’s largest purpose-built indoor arena. Tickets for the fight sold out in seven minutes. This would be Groves' first fight at the Manchester Arena since his first fight with Carl Froch in November 2013.

Groves weighed 167 pounds, a full pound under the weight limit and Eubank came in at 167.5 pounds. Both boxers were set to earn a base purse of £1.5 million, which could increase thanks to sponsorship and PPV sales.

Eubank Jr. was a 8/13 favourite to win.

The fight
Groves, the bigger man in the ring, used his jab to control the fight after a cagey round and mostly fought on the back foot, occasionally landing the big shot. An accidental clash of heads caused Eubank to receive a cut on the side of his right eye in round 3. The big cut was dealt with by his corner after the round, but as the fight went on to the later rounds, blood was seen flowing expeditiously. Many thought Eubanks cutman was inadequate in his attempt to stop the cut, Eubank later said he struggled to see out the eye. The fight was riddled with a lot of clinches and unclean punches from both boxers. Groves would suffer a dislocated shoulder in round 12. Nethertheless at the end of the 12th round, all three judges scored the fight for Groves with scores of 117-112, 116-112 and 115-113.

Aftermath
After the fight, Groves said, “It was about who wanted it most, I think, and I obviously wanted it most. The jab was landing correctly all night. When he had success, it was because I did something wrong. He was strong, he was aggressive, but that obviously wasn’t enough tonight.” Eubank replied, “I thought it was close. I thought I did enough in the later rounds to win the fight, but it was a close fight. And all credit to George. You know, this is all part of boxing. You win some and you lose some. Hopefully we can get a rematch. It was enough of a good fight to have another one.”  Punch stats showed that Groves landed 117 of 398 punches thrown (29%) and Eubank landed 92 of his 421 thrown (22%).

Four days after the fight it was revealed Groves didn't fight for Eubank Jr.'s IBO title after failing to agree on sanctioning fees with the IBO's president Ed Levine, thus it became vacant.

Undercard
Confirmed bouts: