Intro:

Barry McGuigan says George Groves deserves a rematch against Carl Froch following Saturday's (23rd November) controversial super-middleweight title fight. McGuigan commented that the referee ended the fight prematurely and Groves was shortchanged.

Script:

SOUNDBITE: (English) Barry McGuigan, former WBA World Featherweight Champion and member of the World Boxing Hall of Fame (on Carl Froch v George Groves):
"I thought it was a tremendous fight and I wasn't surprised because everybody was writing off (George) Groves - he was chinny, inexperienced, he hadn't fought, hadn't fought the calibre of opposition - but I always knew that he could really box well, he could punch tremendously hard and it didn't surprise me at all that he had (Carl) Froch at sixes and sevens in the first round, out on his feet really. Therein is the issue, he wasn't as badly hurt, some would say, as Froch was in the first round in the ninth round when he stopped the fight. I thought the referee was premature. I understand that there are risks and we've had a spat of fights recently that have gone on too long and there's been injuries and so on, brain injuries, and I understand that but in a world title fight with so much at stake, he wasn't badly hurt enough to terminate the contest. And let's not forgot in the first round, Froch was kind of walking in when he was hurt and then he got nailed with a counterpunch and that could have happened again in the ninth round. The public were shortchanged because it wasn't allowed to go to it's natural conclusion. That's all. I still think Froch is a phenomenal fighter and there's every chance he could have stopped him in that round. There was still one minute and 28 seconds left but I think Groves, above everybody else was short changed. He should have been given the chance to try and get himself out of trouble and come to a naturaly conclusion in the contest.