Tag Archives: George Groves

THE angst that boxing coach Paddy Fitzpatrick was putting up with on a personal level, even as he was doing everything possible to get George Groves ready for last Saturday’s WBC world title fight, must have been close to unbearable. As he worked in the gym, his newborn son was thousands of miles away, fighting for his life in a British hospital. While there is still disappointment about last Saturday’s defeat to Badou Jack, he is very much looking at it in a bigger context this week. “I came home last night [Monday] and met my child for the first time; he’s a month old and he was born while I was away. We came close to the fact that I mightn’t even be going to see him because he got very badly ill after two weeks, got taken into hospital and spent eight days there. I didn’t tell George he had been taken into hospital. “He had Strep B …

WHILE boxing coach Paddy Fitzpatrick still says he has the utmost respect for George Groves, he feels he has worked with him for the last time, following his third defeat in a world title fight at the weekend. The first two defeats were to the legendary Carl Froch, the first an extremely controversial stoppage, followed by the famous Wembley grudge match attended by 80,000 and watched by millions on Sky, in which Froch knocked out the challenger with a massive right in the eighth round. Groves regrouped with two victories but his coach feels coming back from last weekend’s defeat to Badou Jack will be the toughest test yet. “He’s had to deal with a fantastic amount of stress and, I tell you what, I tip my hat to him for the way he has dealt with it. When you think of the stress of a man for his first world title in his own country, with 20,000 people booing …

CLARE boxing trainer Paddy Fitzpatrick has told The Clare Champion of his disappointment after his fighter Londoner George Groves lost last weekend’s WBC world title in Las Vegas. Fitzpatrick, now based in England, grew up in Ennis and South East Clare, and he also spoke of his anguish during training in the US, as his new born son was seriously ill in the UK. Such was his discipline that even though he was personally tormented, he never told Groves about his troubles, making sure the big punching super middle weight was fully focused on his third title shot. Now, back home in England, he says that he feels he won’t work with Groves again, having coached him for three world championship challenges, all of them unsuccessful. While he feels that Groves has all the physical and technical attributes that could yet see him take a world title, he feels it will be very difficult for him to recover mentally from …