By Lee Collier

George Groves steps up to championship level in only his ninth fight on Saturday's David Haye-John Ruiz undercard.  Groves, 22, will challenge Ghana’s Charles Adamu, who took Carl Froch 12 rounds earlier in his career, and who recently beat Liverpool’s Carl Dilks to win the Commonwealth title.  Groves is quite rightfully in a buoyant mood and feels he is ready to win his first title.

“I have been excited about this fight for a long time and am just counting down the days to the fight.  I’m up in Manchester now and hopefully I’ll be winning my first title this week,” said a confident Groves. 

“It’s been a long camp, I only had a week off after my last fight then I was back in sparring, I have been fit and ready to go for the last few weeks.  I am peaking then coming back down then peaking again, and now I’m just ready to go.”

Groves recently sparred a man who knows Adamu well, current WBC super-middleweight champion Carl Froch, which is something the young Londoner has enjoyed.  “I’ve been up to Nottingham and done some sparring with Froch as he’s fighting Kessler in a few weeks,” revealed Groves.

“Sparring with Froch was good for me as I could see how much I had improved since I sparred with him last year.  Straight afterwards Carl told me I’d improved since last time which was brilliant for me to hear,” beamed Groves.

“Since then I have been sparring with David’s sparring partners for Ruiz,” revealed Groves.  “Whilst they aren’t as tough as Ruiz I have sparred with the likes of BJ Flores and a few other heavyweights and to be honest it’s the best my sparring as ever gone.”

Whilst Adamu is getting on at 32, and seemed to struggle against Dilks, Groves and his team are not taking the champion lightly.  “I see Adamu from the performance he gave against Dilks when he threw a lot of punches but they were mostly wild and inaccurate,” recalled Groves. 

“I’m not going to give him any cheap shots and let him leech of my style and get any confidence.  I’ve been doing lots of different stuff in the gym and I feel I have added enough to my game so hopefully it will all come out on Saturday night.”

Groves continued, “I think Adamu will be a real test, he is real durable and I need the rounds under my belt and I’ll get that with Adamu and it’s the right move for me at this time of my career.”

Groves was originally set to face Dilks in a British title eliminator before the chance to fight for a Commonwealth title became available.  The British belt is still something that Groves, like any other young British fighter, craves to win but knows he must take care of Adamu before setting his sights on the British title.

“I’d still love to win the British title but don’t want to look past Adamu,” said a cautious Groves.  “I feel Adamu is a tougher challenge for me than Paul Smith.  I watched Smith and Dodson last week and thought it was a poor show for the talent in the country at the minute.  I am definitely going to win that British title sooner rather than later.  I would beat Smith tomorrow looking at his last two performances.  All Smith is going to do is hold and bore people to death so I’d go in there and box him and I reckon I’ll knock him out.”