By Terence Dooley

Super middleweight contender Kenny Anderson, 16-1 (12), faces a long wait for his shot at George Groves’s British 168lb title as the BBBoC have put the contest back out to purse bids due to ‘Frank Warren advising [the Board] that a suitable venue could not be secured’.  FWP Ltd. won the first purse bid to stage the contest, which was originally scheduled for March, only for Groves to suffer an injury that nixed the bout.  The lack of a suitable venue has now torpedoed a revised, yet not officially announced, June 30 date.  According to the BBBoC’s recent championship notice, the new bids are due in on July 11 and the bout must be staged by the end of September.

Ironically, Groves recovered from his original injury just in time to be lined up as a challenger for Robert Stieglitz’s WBO title in Germany on May 5 only for a nose injury to put paid to that one.  This meant that Anderson, believing the June 30 date was now on the cards, started training for the mooted contest despite no sign of posters, tickets or any notification as to the status of the rematch of their November 2010 war, which Groves won in the sixth-round after overcoming a knockdown in the third.

Despite this confusion and change, Anderson has remained in the gym.  Kevin Maree, who trains the Scottish contender, today confirmed that they hope to line up an interim outing for the 29-year-old fighter.  “We are gutted,” said Maree when speaking to BoxingScene about this latest twist in the saga. 

“We were nominated as mandatory challenger in December, but now it won’t happen until September at the earliest.  We’re facing almost a year as mandatory challenger for the title and have spent money on training, hotel and travel costs for two fights that failed to happen.  We had presumed, but nobody told us, that the [June] 30th date was off.”

Groves, 14-0 (11), must be equally disappointed.  The popular Londoner attained new levels of acclaim when decisioning bitter city rival James DeGale on May 21 2010.  The 24-year-old inked a deal with Frank Warren Promotions later the same year and fought Paul Smith on November 5 yet now fights as often as Mahatma Gandhi and has lost a lot of his hard-earned momentum.

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