JAMIE Cox conceded he had been caught out by the boxing brain of George Groves as he reflected on his first professional defeat at Wembley’s SSE Arena on Saturday.

Cox’s bid to dethrone the WBA super-middleweight champion and progress to the semi-finals of the World Boxing Super Series was ended by a crunching right hand from Groves to the Swindon man’s midriff, with Cox unable to meet the 10-count of referee Steve Gray.

The Swindon southpaw had shown enough to rattle the favourite up to that point, recognising his best chance of victory came in closing the distance between the two.

But Groves delivered a peach of an out-of-the-blue body shot to fell the Wiltshire man midway through the fourth round and booka Series semi against Chris Eubank Jr next year.

“I thought George boxed very smart. He has a good boxing brain, I over-stretched and he picked a lovely shot out,’’ said Cox, for whom it was a first defeat in 25 pro contests.

“I’ve never been down with a body shot in my life so full credit to George, it must have been a good one.

“I knew that George is strong and I expected more power. His power I could cope with, but his boxing skill was better than I expected and that’s what surprised me.

“Sometimes, you don’t have to be the strongest, you pick your shots, placing them and he did that very well.’’

Cox forced Groves - his one-time room-mate on the Great Britain amateur squad - into the toe-to-toe battle he wanted at times, especially during the second round, but the Swindon man’s trainer John Costello admitted they had been done by his opponent’s ring nous.

“For 10-and-a-half weeks, I said ‘Jamie, if you miss with the left hand, George’s reaction shot is the right uppercut’. We spoke about it for 10-and-a-half-weeks; Jamie’s failure’s my failure,” said Costello.

“We both failed tonight. George’s distance was fantastic. We knew the shot was coming and he still landed it. I thought the kid boxed really, really well. I was very impressed with his boxing. He’s a good fighter and a damn good champion.’’

Groves added: “Jamie obviously was taking to the body early and I was taking those shots away from him and landing the counter shots well and working the body myself.

“Jamie, I always knew, had tremendous heart, lots of balls.

“He would walk through big shots that I was landing, so he was always dangerous.

“Certainly, he deserved to be at this level. We had fun and games in the build-up and I put him down a little bit, but I always knew he was better than what I was saying.’’