George Groves relishing Wembley clash with German who beat Gennady Golovkin

George Groves will face Germany's Eduard Gutknecht next month knowing that his opponent once recorded a rare victory over the fearsome Gennady Golovkin.

The Wembley SSE Arena fight on November 18 was announced on Thursday.

Super-middleweight Groves will continue building towards an expected fourth world title fight when he meets an opponent who has already defeated one of the finest boxers of the modern era.

IBF, WBC and WBA middleweight champion Golovkin remains undefeated as a professional, after the Kazakh beat Kell Brook in London last month. As an amateur he is widely reported to have lost only five times among 345 victories. Other sources suggest he was beaten more frequently.

The 34-year-old Gutknecht, once the European light-heavyweight champion and a world title challenger, secured one of those wins against the amateur Golovkin.

When asked about his opponent's famous scalp, Groves told Press Association Sport: "They only told me that yesterday. That's not a bad resume, is it? Not bad pedigree he's showing.

"I know (Golovkin) lost five, and Shane (McGuigan, my trainer) said that he had beaten Golovkin. I said, 'Where did he beat him? He didn't beat him in the Gutknecht Cup in Germany, did he?'.

"He's got good pedigree. (But) I'm not going to hang my hat on it, I didn't really want to talk about it too much: 'Wow, I'm fighting a guy who beat Golovkin eight years ago, over three two-minute rounds or something'.

"He's certainly boxed at the highest level for an awful long time. Personally I wouldn't make too big a thing of it. He could have beaten Golovkin in his last fight and I wouldn't have made a big thing of it: they're all-comers and they're all going to get the same treatment.

"He's not that different from Martin Murray, but this guy's obviously much more of a natural super-middleweight."

Groves' previous fight in June produced one of his finest victories, when he impressively out-classed Murray on the undercard of Anthony Joshua's IBF heavyweight title defence against Dominic Breazeale.

His next against Gutknecht will be live on Channel 5, a terrestrial television platform that represents a promising opportunity to build his profile. It also comes at a time when that of his domestic rival, IBF super-middleweight champion James DeGale, is suffering through a lack of exposure.

The combination of that with the birth of Groves' first son, Teddy, in July has left him feeling positive after a difficult period in his career concluded with the defeat of Murray.

"This is me fighting back," Groves said. "One of the biggest points of fighting on terrestrial TV is to gain exposure and raise your profile, and the stronger you are in that sense, the easier it is to make the bigger fights, the world title fights, which is obviously going to be the main goal.

"(I want to) move on, in developing my trainer-fighter experience and relationship with Shane, and keep testing myself."

The 28-year-old was also asked if he would one day allow his son to fight, and he said: "I don't have a choice in the matter, 'cause it's already got a big 'X' through it from the missus (wife Sophie). I wouldn't argue with her, not right now: she might pass some more responsibility over to me.

"Probably not. I'd love him to do it, but not to the point where it's serious, but that's easier said than done."