George Groves

Groves turned professional and joined the Hayemaker Promotions stable. His first fight as a professional took place in November 2008 at The O2 Arena, on the undercard of David Haye's win over Monte Barrett with a six round win over Lithuanian, Kirill Pshonko. His next outing in February 2009, saw him score a third round stoppage over Frenchman, Romaric Hignard in a fight at the York Hall in Bethnal Green. He followed the victory up in March defeating Paul Samuels at the Echo Arena in Liverpool and in April travelled to Belfast to dispose of the Hungarian, Sandor Polgar.
In September 2009, following the collapse of Hayemaker's television deal with Setanta Sports, Groves along with Olympian bronze medal winner David Price signed a promotional deal with veteran boxing promoter Frank Maloney who described Groves as "one of the world's best prospects". Despite signing for Maloney however, Groves would continue to be managed and trained by Hayemaker's Adam Booth. On 7 November 2009, following two more professional outings, Groves travelled to Germany and fought on the undercard of stablemate David Haye's WBA title win against Nikolai Valuev, defeating experienced Belarussian, Konstantin Makhankov in his first fight over eight rounds.