Carl Froch says George Groves gave him ‘biggest beating of my life’ and recalls hatred for former rival who made his blood boil

Carl Froch took on some formidable fighters in his career, but George Groves gave him the 'biggest beating' of them all.

The fight that everyone remembers between these two was when they clashed at Wembley Stadium in 2014 and Froch knocked out Groves in spectacular fashion before retiring from boxing.

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But, this came after the pair fought for the first time in 2013, while Froch was WBA and IBF super middleweight title holder and a young Groves was gearing up for his first world title shot.

A huge amount of animosity grew between the two men in the build-up, which led to the fight being highly anticipated by boxing fans.

And on fight night, Groves dropped Froch in round one and seemed to be enjoying the better of the action.

But, in round nine, Froch hurt his opponent and the fight was waved off by the referee, and even all these years later, Groves insists the fight was stopped too early, describing it as 'bizarre'.

With both men appearing on talkSPORT with Simon Jordan and Jim White, Froch joked: "One thing I've learned to not do anymore is try and convince George that fight was stopped correctly by [referee] Howard Foster - you're wasting your time, you're flogging a dead horse."

Froch continued, talking about his first fight with Groves: "He was that far ahead on all the scorecards, he'd dropped me in the first round, he beat me up the worst I've ever been beaten...

"I've got it up there with probably the worst beating I've ever had, and when you look at how many fights I had, world title fights back to back, for me to concede that George Groves gave me the biggest beating of my life, that's a big statement."

As for why he had such a hatred for Groves during their rivalry, Froch explained: "He was a horrible, obnoxious little 'beep', I'm not going to swear because I know we're live on talkSPORT, but he was horrible.

"He gave me no respect, he was playing down my performances, he said I was slow and that my feet were slow, he said I had no defence, he said everything he could to get under my skin.

"And when we came together and we did a 'Gloves are Off' ringside show he said I was gonna start crying... But, he was doing a great job because my blood was boiling."

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Froch then admitted while a number of fighters attempt to trash-talk their opponents: "Nobody does it like George Groves did it, he was the best."

Groves then chimed in, saying: "It's part of the business at times, you want to get under your opponents skin and if it gives you a bit of an advantage come fight night then you do that.

"But, ultimately I felt like what Carl wanted was a bit of respect from me, or what he deemed as respect, and I had it for him, I just wasn't prepared to show him or give him that satisfaction."

Nowadays, however, the two men are great friends and Froch confirmed that, saying: "What's good about it is, George Groves became world champion in his own right... and we've both become friends, I never thought was possible.

"I've got so much respect and admiration, I mean look at his stupid smile over there.

"That smile I used to want to punch it down the back of his throat, now I want to grab hold of his cheeks and give them a squeeze."