• Steve Bunce

Groves and DeGale heading for conflict

Frank Warren now has two great rivals, James DeGale and George Groves, on his books © PA Photos

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There's no doubt that George Groves' decision to sign with Frank Warren Promotions is a brilliant move for both parties. It was assumed George had done a deal with Matchroom Sport and then, suddenly, one of those rare things in boxing - a shock. It came completely out of the blue and the experts were left looking in the mirror.

Financially it must make sense for George, otherwise he wouldn't have done it, and it means him and James DeGale will get back in the ring together at some point over the next 12 to 18 months. That's fantastic for British boxing, and it's just about long enough after their initial showdown in May. An instant rematch was never a good idea.

You can't hold off on a rematch for five, six years, because they haven't got the pulling power of, say, Floyd Mayweather Jnr or Manny Pacquiao. You can certainly leave it 18 months, that's about perfect. I think it'll be very late 2012 or early 2013 when they meet again, and I don't think it matters if either of them lose before then - it's a fight that will still work.

Will DeGale be annoyed that Warren has signed his fierce rival? I don't think so - it's not like football, they're not in the same dressing room all the time. The next time these two meet could be in a press conference a year or so from now to announce their second fight.

And it's not like Frank is going to take all his eggs out of the DeGale basket and put them all in the Groves basket. Groves is going to be promoted like DeGale, Nathan Cleverly, Dereck Chisora, Kevin Mitchell and all the rest under Warren's wing. Frank's a clever guy and balancing the moods of fighters is a doddle for him.

Having said that, DeGale and Groves are both young, talented super-middleweights, and at some point in the future I reckon there will be some sort of conflict. One will get a fight, and the other will say "I should have had that". That's where Warren will have to use his skills by sitting them down and explaining exactly why they're going down a certain road. It's not the first time that a promoter has had two fighters at the same weight with the same ambitions.

Groves is now working with a guy who's proven over the past 25 years that he can deliver but, if David Haye hadn't lost to Wladimir Klitschko, I believe that Groves would still be with Hayemaker Promotions. As it is, he can reflect on how he benefitted from David's stature, fighting on big bills and getting an awful lot of publicity.

He was always going to be in David's shadow, but that didn't hurt him at all - and there's certainly no sense that he was forgotten about as David and Adam Booth, his trainer, focused on the Klitschko fight.

It was on a Haye bill that Groves was caught and hurt against Kenny Anderson, and it looks like those two are going to meet again in the near future. If Warren promotes it correctly, then by the time we get to fight night everyone will believe that Groves was incredibly lucky to win their first meeting, having found himself on the canvas early on. It's called promotion, trust me.

Twelfth round

Holy's hopeful

Evander Holyfield's arrival in Erfurt, Germany in the week before the fight between Alexander Povetkin and Ruslan Chagaev for the WBA regular heavyweight title was no great shock. Holyfield posed with Povetkin after the Russian's win, and a meeting between those two seems likely - it makes cash-common sense.

However, I think it needs to be looked at very carefully, because Holyfield is 48 and first won a heavyweight championship 21 years ago. Frankly, the fight shouldn't be sanctioned, but we've gone way past that now in boxing and, if organisers object on grounds of age, Holyfield's going to kick up a fuss - and then pass every single one of the medical tests. He's done that before!

Are there Americans out there who are more pressing opponents for Povetkin? Well yes, one or two, but you can play down their history and make them look unimportant. They are either unproven or Klitschko victims.

The Germans who will promote it don't give a fig what anyone thinks, they just care about the amount of bodies going through the turnstiles. And there will be plenty of those. They also love the massive TV viewing figures.

Haye's paper title

I find it staggering that Haye wasn't at the Povetkin-Chagaev fight, considering it was for the belt that he surrendered to Klitschko. The Brit's current situation is bizarre, because very few fighters in history have walked away from the sport at his young age and knowing there's still a couple of big fights left out there. I also find it amazing that we still haven't heard from him on whether or not he is going to continue.

The only explanation I can think of for his silence - and I really hope he doesn't do anything tacky like this, because it would lose him an awful lot of friends - is that he's intending to sell the story to a paper for three and a half quid. I hope I don't read an expensive 'Haye Exclusive' in a paper. Whatever his next move, he needs to call a press conference and let people know. He would be doing everyone a disservice, including himself, if he placed any news exclusively in a newspaper for cash.

I think he's in genuine turmoil - yes, there's been a few pictures of him smiling, but it's killing him. He still can't believe he lost, it's really hurting him.

If he does decide to fight on, I'm struggling to think of a viable route back into the sport. There's young Tyson Fury, but the money he could make from that is so minimal compared to the Klitschko pot.

It's all very well making 20 or 30% of what he pocketed against Wladimir, but my gut feeling is he'll make 3% of what he made against Klitschko if he goes down the Fury route. It's not enough. It's a fun fight, but it's not enough money.

He could walk away into a Hollywood sunset, trust me.

Steve Bunce is co-host of ESPN's Pardon the Interruption show. Click here for more details

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