British champion willing to wait for rival return

Two-belt super-middleweight champion George Groves is just over a week away from his first defence at Wembley Arena but still finds himself answering questions about arch-rival James DeGale and their closely-fought contest in May.

The Hammersmith native was successful on the night, ripping away Olympic gold medallist DeGale’s beloved Lonsdale Belt and has been constantly bombarded with mumblings of a rematch ever since.

Groves, 23, sensibly though, knows that the longer the anticipation, the more interest that will be created and believes that a world title would add even more spectacle to what will already be an intriguing return in the future.

“It’s inevitable we will fight again,” Groves told The Mirror.

“But it will be at the right time. Personally, I won’t feel it’ll be right again until one, or both of us, has a world title.

“Then the public will demand that it happens and it would be even bigger than our last fight, which was huge.”

The ‘Saint’ knows that good rivalry is always a career-booster and after growing up watching all the great super-middleweights of the 1990’s, and see's his beef with DeGale in similar stature if the two fighters play it right.

“You look back to the era when we had Benn, Collins and Eubank and they had some great fights.

“James and I can be like that if we keep progressing and I think we will,” added Groves.