Saturday 14 October 2017 23:11, UK
George Groves defeated Jamie Cox in the quarter-final of the World Boxing Super Series to set up a fight with Chris Eubank Jr.
The WBA super-middleweight champion Groves knocked out Cox with a body shot in the fourth round of the contest at Wembley Arena.
He will now go on to face Eubank Jr, who earned his place in the final four by defeating Avni Yildirim in Turkey, in a semi-final contest in January.
Both fighters demonstrated their aggression from the opening bell. Cox, recognising his finest chance of victory came in closing the distance between the two, was punished with several right hands from Groves but gradually succeeded in catching the champion.
At the start of the second he trapped Groves in the corner and forced him to fight toe to toe, nullifying his greater power and variety and forcing him into a high pace, but after Groves escaped he landed with further powerful right hands.
Cox, accused by his opponent of not being a true middleweight and chosen by him at the competition's draw, began to show signs of being broken down as early as the third, even if he continued to fight with belief and intensity.
The one-time room-mates on the Great Britain amateur squad continued to exchange, but amid the better quality of Groves' punching, the ending soon came.
With Cox targeting the head and leaving himself open, the champion threw a big right hand to the 31-year-old's body that instantly sent him to his knees, unable to meet the 10-count of referee Steve Gray.
There was earlier a stoppage victory for fellow British super-middleweight John Ryder, 29. In a largely one-sided fight, he had already knocked Denmark's Patrick Nielsen to the canvas before brutally knocking him out in the fifth with three successive powerful right hands.
