By Edward Chaykovsky
Both George Groves and Martin Murray have been promising to retire the other next Saturday night.
Their fight takes place on June 25th at the O2 Arena as part of the undercard to the Anthony Joshua vs. Dominic Breazeale Sky Sports Pay-Per-View.
The fight is a WBA super middleweight eliminator, with the victor moving forward to a word title shot and the loser will face the prospect of his career coming to a close.
Groves managed to rebuild his career after suffering back to back knockout defeats to Carl Froch in 2013 and 2014. He was able to secure a mandatory world title shot and went up against WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack last September as part of the Floyd Mayweather vs. Andre Berto undercard at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. In a hard-fought battle, he ended up losing a twelve round split decision. Groves has notched up two quick wins since that loss.
Groves (23-3, 18KOs) is hungry to secure another world title shot, but a loss to Murray (33-3-1, 16KOs) would send his career crashing down, and he doesn't have any desire to enter the rebuilding stage again.
"The truth is, you have to say: 'Where does the guy who loses go from here?'," he told Sky Sports News HQ. "Every loss as a pro is a difficult rebuilding [job], you go back into that rebuilding stage and I am certainly not prepared to do it again and I am certainly not prepared to lose to Martin Murray.
"If we both go out and perform the best we can, I think I am better than him so it is down to me not to let myself down and beat him. It won't be an easy fight but it's a fight I am supremely confident of and I know I will go out and do the job."
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