News – DeGale to Spar with Mayweather Jr.

By Boxing News - 08/28/2009 - Comments

By Scott Gilfoid: 2008 British Olympic Gold Medalist James DeGale (3-0, 2 KO’s) is reportedly excited about being able to spar with Floyd Mayweather Jr. DeGale will be sparring with Mayweather in Las Vegas as Floyd prepares for his September 19th fight against Juan Manuel Marquez. First of all, I think Mayweather is making a huge mistake of having DeGale as one of his sparring partner.

DeGale fights nothing like Marquez at all. In fact, if you wanted to compare DeGale with anyone you would do it with Mayweather. DeGale fights a lot like Mayweather, except that DeGale is much slower and throws his punches in a slapping fashion rather than placing them correctly with his fist closed when he punches.

DeGale is kind of a mix of Mayweather and Joe Calzaghe. I think Mayweather won’t get anything from the sparring that he’ll be able to use against Marquez. Believe me, Marquez and DeGale are two completely different fighters and nothing like each other in style and speed. DeGale is less skilled than Marquez and more of a pure slapper than a boxer/puncher like Marquez.

DeGale sees this experience as something that he’ll be able to gain a lot from in his career. I can’t agree with that either. There are not any super middleweights that fight similar to Mayweather, at least as far as I can see. If you wanted to make a big stretch you could say Andre Ward, but even that wouldn’t be good comparison.

Ward likes to throw power punches and although he does tend to dodge a lot of punches like Mayweather, he’s much more offensively inclined compared to Mayweather. I see this as an experience for DeGale, but only in terms of meeting Mayweather, traveling around Las Vegas, and getting a chance to see America.

But as far as learning anything that DeGale can use against talented super middleweights like Ward, Andre Dirrell and Lucian Bute, DeGale is wasting his time as far as I’m concerned. He might as well go play jacks, because that’s about the same thing that DeGale will be getting from getting punched around by Mayweather in sparring.

I sure hope Mayweather is paying DeGale well for the sparring sessions. That can’t be a pleasant experience to get beaten up in sparring by Mayweather. You know if DeGale does too good in the sparring session, he probably won’t be invited back and will end up with just one sparring session to show for his trip to America.

DeGale’s learning experience will be something he can fit on the tip of pen, that’s about how much he’ll learn from this trip. If DeGale wants to learn something, he should volunteer to be Ward or Dirrell’s sparring partners for their Super Six tournament fights. Now that will be something that DeGale could learn something from.

By sparring with either Dirrell or Ward, DeGale will likely learn to stop slapping so much with his punches and start sitting down on them more. DeGale is going to need to find some power somewhere or else his pro career will be very brief. DeGale needs to improve his boxing skills in a major way because he looks like he doesn’t belong in the pro ranks at this time as far as I’m concerned. DeGale probably should have stayed in the amateur ranks and tried for a second Gold Medal in the Olympics.



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