How to rebuild Benn & Itauma after 'mental scarring' of defeat

George Groves considers how Moses Itauma and Conor Benn should now rebuild after their world championship fight defeats; Watch Johnny Fisher vs Michael Pirotton on Saturday September 26 live on Sky Sports

Two big names in British boxing, earmarked as stars of the future, Moses Itauma and Conor Benn, have suffered shattering defeats in recent weeks.

Both were halted in their first world title fights. Ryan Garcia savagely ended Benn's challenge for the WBC welterweight belt in just two rounds, while Itauma crumbled in the ninth round when boxing Filip Hrgovic for the vacant IBF strap.

George Groves became a big name in British boxing but was no stranger to adversity in his career - it took him four attempts to win a world championship.

He says Itauma, who is still only 21 years old, must demonstrate his resolve.

"He's going to have to show a lot of resilience to come back from that as well as remain confident with self-belief," Groves told Sky Sports .

"There's no way you can train to that level of exhaustion. It's not like you can go into the gym and replicate that. It's never going to be, in the gym, as important as what it is - a world title fight at his age underneath the lights with everything on the line.

"He's been there now and that's a credit to him… Now you've got to use that.

"It's not an easy task but I hope that there isn't a lot of mental scarring there and they can go back and not try and reinvent. Keep what he is but just give him more comfort and confidence in the pacing of the fight."

"Maybe it will come with age, that endurance that he can be much more of a 12 round fighter than a three-round fighter. At the moment he's a three-round fighter. That's the sad fact of it. He's not even a six-round fighter. I thought he was gassing a bit from the third round on," Groves said.

"He's that sort of athlete, extremely fast twitch and when he punches he puts maximum effort into it. But that depletes the engine. At times he's probably never really had to work on it.

"If I had to rebuild Moses Itauma. I would drop him obviously down a level but I've got to be honest I think his management has been great so far. I'm not buying into 'the Hrgovic fight was a step too far'. It was what it was. It was the right fight to make. It got elevated to a world title," he said.

"It was logical to elevate it to a world title and with that maybe came some pressure. Moses, he probably thought he had Hrgovic gone and he didn't and put his foot on the gas a bit too much and he gassed out. So he's going to have to own that a little bit. They'll change and adapt within his training team to patch that up.

"Get him in with someone durable, someone not as durable as Hrgovic maybe."