Two fights that we thought were likely were officially announced over the past couple days. George Groves and Fedor Chudinov will meet for the WBA super middleweight title on the Kell Brook/Errol Spence Jr undercard while Liam Smith and Liam Williams will rematch in a WBO junior middleweight eliminator at some point later this year.
Due to the quirks of the WBA’s very broken title system, the winner of Groves/Chudinov will supersede Tyron Zeuge as their super middleweight titlist despite him not having lost his belt. The WBA is sanctioning this fight for a higher version of their title than what Zeuge has and they only get one titlist just like the other three sanctioning bodies.
Russa’s Chudinov previously held the same title, but he lost in in February 2016 in a rematch with Felix Sturm. This fight was largely considered a robbery and Chudinov has sat out waiting for an opportunity to reclaim his belt ever since. England’s Groves is 0-3 in world title bouts and is most recently coming off a tragic 2016 bout with Eduard Gutknecht. After the fight, Gutknecht collapsed in the locker room and remains severely brain damaged due to damage suffered that night. It remains to be seen how heavily this will weigh on Groves’s heart going forward.
Liam Bowl II, a rematch of a controversial TKO win for Liam Smith due to a cut on Liam Williams who was winning the fight, is set for later this year. Frank Warren is reportedly targeting September. Canelo Alvarez will be vacating his WBO junior middleweight title when he moves up to fight Gennady Golovkin in the same month and Smith/Williams II will help determine who gets to fight for it once it is vacant.
