George Groves has revealed what happened when he met the family of Eduard Gutknecht, the boxer left disabled after their fight in November.

Gutknecht tragically collapsed with a bleed on the brain after a one-sided points victory for Groves and spent five weeks in a coma.

Sickeningly, he is yet to recover the capacity to walk or speak, and his family were given the heart-breaking news that he will never recover to the point that he does not require care.

“Selfishly, while I’m still fighting I’m always going to struggle with his condition,” Groves said, as per The Mail. “It’s a horrible thing. I struggle with it, my wife struggles with it.”

The London-born fighter set up a fundraising appeal for the German to help finance care at home, and raised over £4,000, but has revealed meeting Gutknecht’s family was the only thing which could ease his own emotional trauma.

“I managed to see him before he went back to Germany,” he revealed. “I met his wife and his sister and they gave me a big hug straight away.

“I knew they were feeling it, but they didn’t blame me.

“They said, 'This is sport, we understand'. To relieve me of that sort of guilt was a wonderful thing that they didn't need to do, I really appreciated that.

“He's still in our prayers and we all hope for an improvement for him soon so he can get back to a good standard of living.”

Groves says the meeting took a weight off his shoulders, allowing him to focus on his fourth world title fight later this month against Fedor Chudinov for the vacant WBA super-middleweight title.

It will be Groves’ first bout since November’s match against Gutknecht, and he admits he does not know if he will be affected by the German’s condition until he steps back into the ring.

He believes, however, that if he does not win a world title against the Russian then he never will.
“It's instinct, isn't it? So you won't know until you know,” he said. “Sparring partners are trying to hit me and I'm trying to hit them back so it's hopefully still there. It certainly needs to be.

“After the Badou Jack fight I was thinking (it was not meant to be for me to win a world title): it's in the back of your mind, that ticking clock.

“I don't want to be, 'I've lost the fight because I've been robbed (against Froch), I've lost the fight because I've been knocked out (in the Froch rematch), because I didn't do enough (against Jack)'. I've covered all bases now.

“There will be elements of (desperation); the best way to get rid of the desperation, the pressure or anxiety is to be fully prepared.”