The World Boxing Super Series super-middleweight tournament concluded on Friday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and fans saw Callum Smith (25-0, 18 KOs) score a minor upset win over fellow Englishman George Groves (28-4, 20 KOs) to become the new WBA super-middleweight champion with a dramatic seventh-round KO. It’s the biggest win of Smith’s career and the end of Groves’ reign as a world champion, having beaten Fedor Chudinov in May 2017 and defended the belt successfully twice during the WBSS tourney.
It was a closely fought contest through six rounds, with scorecards leaning towards Groves on a fourth-judge tiebreaker, but Smith turned things permanently in his favor with a left hook that crashed against Groves’ skull.