By Jim Dower: Former 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist James DeGale (1-0) got off on the right track in his pro career on Saturday night defeating Georgian Vepkhia Tchilaia (9-9, 5 KOs) by a four-round referee’s decision at the National Indoor Arena, in Birmingham, West Midlands. Referee Howard John Foster scored it 40-36, giving all four rounds to DeGale.
However, DeGale looked quite lazy and uninspired at times fighting as if he was not there mentally. The crowd hated his style, booing loudly well before the end of the fight and wanting him to put more of an effort into the fight. It had no effect on him, though, as he continued to fight in a pattern similar to Audley Harrison early in his career.
Tchilaia, 21, who had been defeated six out of his last seven fights (including two by knockout) coming into this fight, was able to land an occasional big shot through DeGale’s low guard and puff up his right eye. Like always, DeGale kept his hands down in front of him through much of the fight, rarely raising them up to try and block punches.
Instead, he depended on his reflexes to allow him to bend out of the way of punches. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t judging by the amount of times he was hit cleanly by Tchilaia. Obviously, his defense is something that DeGale is going to need to work on if he wants to get to the next level.
Even worse than his poor defense, was DeGale’s total lack of power. He slapped with his punches for the most part and naturally, he could get nothing on them. In the 3rd round, DeGale was warned for throwing backhands, which he often did as he would shoot out a lazy looking jab. Some of his lack of power can be explained by the fact that he was often fighting on the back foot, leaning away and ready to run at the faintest hint of aggression from Tchilaia.
However, even when DeGale was coming forward and sitting down on his punches, he was unable to get nothing on his shots. For the most part, he looked like a slower, weaker, much sloppier version of Joe Calzaghe.
If you were to drop Calzaghe’s speed down a couple of notches and take away his accuracy and defense and throw in some of Harrison’s lackadaisical style of fighting, you would arrive at what DeGale looked like on Saturday night. Who knows? Maybe it was just an off night, but whatever the case, he’s going to need to get better in a hurry if he wants to challenge for a title some day.
Tchilaia was the type of fighter that DeGale should have taken out without any problems and the fact that he couldn’t is more than a little worrisome. If DeGale isn’t able to find some power in the future, he’s going to have to hope that his chin can keep him in fights because he’ll end up taking a lot of punishment if he can’t knockout many of his opponents.
As for the fight on Saturday night, DeGale dominated Tchilaia in every round, out landing him approximately 20-1 during that time. Tchilaia was hardly throwing anything back and was just taking punishment. But DeGale looked sloppy, weak and slow as he would deliver his unorthodox shots. In the 2nd round, DeGale switched often between southpaw and orthodox fighting stances, as if he needed to in order to confuse Tchilaia.
It wasn’t necessary because his opponent was hopelessly outclassed. Often, DeGale would throw lead left hands without a jab, leaving himself open for counter shots. His hand speed wasn’t good enough for him to get away with this and he found himself getting nailed on occasion by Tchilaia.
In the 4th round, the crowd, sick of watching DeGale just going through the motions and lacking any fire, began to boo loudly. In most circumstances, this would get a fighter to start throwing some hard leather, but not in this case. DeGale continued to fight in a leisurely rate until the very end of the fight.
Afterwards, a defensive sounding DeGale had this to say: “I was taking my time. It’s a learning curve. What do you want me to do?”
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