Although he was subject to a brutal knockout by Carl Froch in May 2014, George Groves claims the pain he went through to defend his WBA super-middleweight title on Friday night was much worse.
Saint George, as he is known, faces Callum Smith in the final of the World Boxing Super Series in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
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However, Groves’ build-up to the fight has been disrupted after he suffered a gruesome left shoulder dislocation in his semi-final win over Chris Eubank Jr in February.
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The physical pain from surgery and rehab was worse than anything Groves faced – and that includes Froch’s stunning right-hand at Wembley that left Groves in bits.
Groves, 30, revealed: “Physically, the shoulder injury was harder than those defeats. It has been agony.
“I did walk a tightrope of thinking ‘can I be bothered?’
“Then you snap out of it. I thought ‘don’t be so ignorant, you have a gift, why turn your back on the tournament’.
“Then the next day you think ‘I am not getting beat just because I’m injured’. It has been a dogged time rehabbing, the hardest thing I’ve had to do.
“Seeing the chiropractor, the osteopath, the surgeon, was not easy. Then looking in the mirror and seeing your shoulder is one fifth of the size it was going into the fight…”
But the Londoner, who became a world champion after three failed attempts, warned: “I have not done all of this to go through the motions, I will be just as good as I was before, if not better.
“I could not say I lost because of the shoulder, I wouldn’t even want to listen to myself using that excuse so who else would?”
Groves comes up against scouser Smith, 28, who is a 6ft 3in giant in the 168lb division.
But after his long rehabilitation process, Groves insisted he felt like “nasty person” again and is determined to win the trophy at the end of the fight.
He added: “I don’t want anyone else to win this trophy. I am back to feeling like an athlete.
“Now I feel like a nasty person again and I want to have a fight.”