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George Groves beats Jamie Cox in four and prepares for Eubank fight

George Groves walks away from Jamie Cox after stopping him in the fourth round for his quick win.

George Groves has had plenty of tough nights in his career but the world WBA super-middleweight champion showed what a consummate operator he has become when he rode out the intense challenge of Jamie Cox for a fourth-round stoppage as impressive as any of his 26 victories.

It was a near-perfect preparation for the semi-final of the World Boxing Super Series against Chris Eubank Jr, in January or February, probably at Craven Cottage – which should test the midwinter hardiness of boxing fans, as well as the fighters. It will almost certainly be an early contender for fight of the year.

“I made a mistake and he made me pay,” a disconsolate Cox said on the ring apron.

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“I didn’t want an easy fight,” Groves said. And Cox was not there to give him one. For weeks, word had circulated that Cox, the smaller man, was knocking out sparring partners as big as light-heavyweight (confirmed ringside by Nigel Benn’s son, Conor, who has seen the Swindon fighter work out), and the southpaw had his big left cocked like a pistol from the start.

Cox, who won Commonwealth gold in 2006 and has had his problems away from the ring in a stop-start career, burst into action with a flurry of headshots that had Groves sucking the air with his back to the ropes. Cox shipped a few near the bell, but was still buzzing.

A thumping Cox left hook steadied the champion at the start of the third and, as he grinned to his corner over Groves’s shoulder, he seemed primed for the fight of his life. The battle-hardened Londoner kept his shape, though, and edged the round.

While a fight in the crowd rumbled in the background, the paid combatants continued to provide the quality entertainment and some of the miscreants no doubt missed the conclusion. Groves buried a wicked right deep into Cox’s unprotected ribs over the top of a wild oncoming right hand and, try as he might, the challenger could not beat the count at one minute and 42 seconds of the fourth round.

The first time Groves fought at this venue, six years ago on the undercard of Ricky Burns’s successful world title defence against Michael Katsidis, he was taking care of business in two rounds against Paul Smith as the British and Commonwealth 12-stone champion. The finishing punch was as sweet as any he has thrown. Billy Joe Saunders was further down the bill, and James DeGale was hoping for a return with Groves after losing to him on points a few months earlier.

How the landscape has shifted. While Groves would later lose twice to Carl Froch before winning the WBA belt, DeGale forged on to become IBF champion, but is recovering from shoulder surgery – Saunders is in a queue waiting for Gennady Golovkin and Saul Álvarez to settle their dispute in a rematch next year.

Into this entertaining maelstrom steps Eubank. It is fair to say a fight between him and Groves is more intriguing – perhaps more commercially appealing – than Groves-DeGale. Eubank seems comfortable at super-middleweight (so a rematch with Saunders might not happen for a while), as his impressive knockout of the unbeaten but limited Turk Avni Yildirim in Stuttgart last weekend demonstrated.

On an interesting undercard, the 38-year-old light-middleweight Kevin McCauley, who has lost 154 times, beat Jamie “Mr Excitement” Carley, eight years his junior, in a fill-in four-rounder before the main event.

A step up from that in quality, John Ryder stopped the former world title challenger Patrick Nielsen with a right uppercut in the fifth round that the Dane never saw, preoccupied perhaps after the Londoner dislodged his mouthguard with a left hook good enough to finish any fight.

The Eubank aura was not enough to protect the record of Chris’s other fighting son, Nathaniel “Banks” Wilson, who was stopped on his feet in the first round after the unheralded Camberley lightweight, Jonny Phillips, had floored him with a left hook. The loser protested to the referee, Howard Foster, to no avail.

Earlier, Foster was involved in another controversy in the welterweight bout between Louis Adolphe and Nathan McIntosh. Four seconds from the end of the first round, the unbeaten Adolphe appeared to deck McIntosh after Foster had called for a break. The Nottingham boxer received oxygen in the ring as Adolphe celebrated – only to then be disqualified for a late blow.

Never a dull moment in this game.