George Groves has told James DeGale to forget about a rematch - for now.
The British and Commonwealth super-middleweight champion defends his titles against Paul Smith on Saturday, knowing a win will raise the stakes for a return of their May showdown.
Not only will his performance be compared to DeGale's, when he outclassed the Liverpudlian to take the British belt, but the bitter rivals are now essentially stablemates.
Groves has of course joined Frank Warren's set-up and the man who promotes them both has made no secret that a rematch is very much part of his plans.
But the champion says a second meeting at this stage, would be utterly pointless.
";Last time we boxed it was unavoidable," he told skysports.com.
"I believe when we do box again, it definitely won't be on his terms. It'll be whether I want it, or whether the public demand it. Not if he wants it.
"We made our point clear to Frank when we signed, what we want from the next couple of years, he totally understands and we said that James DeGale is not on our immediate radar.
"I beat him, there's no need to beat him again any time soon. It doesn't serve me any purpose, it doesn't make me a better fighter."
"In a few years' time if there's something more prestigious on the line, or if we've both made improvements then we'll do it again. But at this time, there's no point.
"Neither of us has improved enough for there to be a rematch. I've not fought - and he's gone backwards."
DeGale picked up the European title with a gutsy points win over the game Pole, Piotr Wilczewski, and has joined Warren in calling for a rematch with Groves.
But he is yet to match his career-best performance, the ninth-round stoppage of Smith to become British champion in only his ninth professional fight.
That defeat forced former champion Smith back to the drawing board. He has since moved to Joe Gallacher's gym and has first-round blow-outs of Jozsef Matolcsi and Paul Samuels behind him as he heads to Wembley Arena on Saturday, where he wants to regain the title he held for 15 months from October 2009.
"I'm ready for Paul Smith because I think this is probably his last chance," said Groves.
"But I haven't seen him perform well to be honest; even way back when he fought Tony Quigley, I thought he was uptight.
"Then, when he fought Tony Dodson, I thought he was getting outboxed for vast amounts of that fight, it was just that Dodson seemed panicked about blowing up. And obviously when he fought DeGale he was annihilated.
"For me, it's about fighting the best Paul Smith. He's got a new trainer in Joe Gallagher for a start.
"But the thing that benefits me is a lot of those Joe Gallagher fighters fight pretty similar to each other, you know they're in the gym doing exactly the same things.
"I saw Scott Quigg the other week, so I can probably take more out of that fight than any of Smith's! I've been preparing for Quigg - and he's probably the best out of all that lot!"