Chris Eubank Jr. of the fight would earn his place in the final of the tournament as well as walk out with the WBA (Super) and IBO super-middleweight titles. Tickets for the fight sold out in seven minutes. Groves weighed 167 pounds, a full pound under the weight limit and Eubank came in at 167.5 pounds. Groves secured his place in the final of the tournament after defeating Eubank over 12 rounds. The judges scored the fight 117-112, 116-112 and 115-113 for Groves. Groves, the bigger man in the ring, used his jab to control the fight after a cagey round and mostly
World Boxing Organization champions Michael Moorer, Riddick Bowe, and Henry Akinwande relinquishing the title to pursue other options. Boxing publication "The Ring" also did not recognize the WBO, despite having recognized the IBF after its inception in 1983, five years prior to the WBO. In the lighter weight divisions, however, long-reigning champions during the 1990s such as Chris Eubank, Dariusz Michalczewski, Johnny Tapia, and Naseem Hamed gave the WBO title increasingly more prestige. The WBO was also made popular by boxers such as Marco Antonio Barrera, Oscar De La Hoya, Nigel Benn, Ronald "Winky" Wright, Joe Calzaghe, and Wladimir Klitschko, all of whom