Froch: DeGale should change trainers
May 29th, 2011
By Scott Gilfoid: Former British super middleweight champion James DeGale fought well enough to win against challenger George Groves last week but came up short when Groves won the fight by a narrow and controversial 12 round majority decision. DeGale looked superb in the second half of the fight but fought the wrong fight in the first four rounds by starting out too slowly against the constantly moving Groves.
“He [DeGale] fought the wrong fight,” Froch said to the independent.co.uk. “Maybe this will be a reality check. I don’t really have any advice other than he should change his trainer. He didn’t seem prepared right mentally. With a different trainer he might have gone in with a more positive attitude. Where was the fire in his belly?”
I disagree. I think DeGale’s trainer was fine. It was simply a case of DeGale not being prepared to start attacking quickly enough. I still had DeGale winning the fight by four rounds, but he should have attacked Groves from the 1st round and kept him eating leather for the full 12 rounds in order to take the judges out of the fight. I think DeGale was prepared, but he seemed to wait too long to do what he needed to do. Sometimes if you get off to a slow start, the judges have already made up their minds after the first few rounds about who wins the fight. It’s like meeting someone for the first time. It’s sometimes impossible to get beyond the first impression and once there’s anchor there it’s hard to change your original thoughts. DeGale needs to learn from this fight and realize that you have to win over the judges from the first part of the fight and make them see you as a winner. If you ease off in between that, fine, but at least come out strong in the first four rounds.
Tags: 15 Responses to “Froch: DeGale should change trainers”
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froch is right..when all uve got to teach ur man is change ur fighting stance to confuse ur opponent its time to move on…its not hard to work out booths run away game plan..james corner just didnt know wat to do with it and if u cant handle that its time to move on
groves did not look good under pressure bit like when he fought kenny anderson we all no kenny is a four round fighter
Narrow, yes, controversial,no. Pr**k
yes scott degale fought much better in the second half of the fight. but he still didnt win every round in the second half where as groves was consistent all the way through the fight by the end of the fight i had groves the clear winner by two points and i couldnt give two hoots as to what gilfoid or jim watt thinks as i have a much better understanding of the sport of boxing then these to fools and the thing i loved the most was round four the very round degale had said he would knock out groves was the very round groves delt out the biggest boxing lesson to degale and i laughed my head off
DeGale has the skills its so clear to see! He is a better boxer than Groves and also has a good chin. What your saying above is that he didnt start right and that cost him, well why did his trainer not get at him to change up! He isnt up to it. DeGale needs to change trainer, if he had Adam Booth and the Haymaker camp in his corner he would do better.
you are wrong. degale lost cos his trainer wasn’t up to it. right now he is actually better than groves…but groves won cos booth had instilled a gameplan in him & he stuck to it. degale went back to his corner & mcdonnell didn’t know what to tell him. the difference on the night WAS the trainers.
it wasnt controversial scott so shut ya mouth and can u please get over it!! degale got beat fair and square
Good article. I know degale and jim mcdonnal have a good connection but mayb time for a change
Had De Gale just edging it but in hindsight he should have given the judges no doubt by turning up the heat in the first portion of the fight. De Gale ought to treat this as a teachable moment, go out to the US full time and get some quality sparring and coaching.
I never saw this superb james degale in the 2nd half of the fight. I saw the same james degale all the way through, someone who had an inferior gameplan, got outthought, outboxed and totaly clueless devoid of a plan b. Groves deserved the win and it wasn’t particulary tricky in there for him. He was by far the smarter better fighter on the night.
Although I thought Degale did enough to win the fight, he should have committed himself more. He waited too long unnecessarily and that’s what made Groves more confident.
Groves trainer Mr Booth must have done a marvellous job, I was quite impressed with him to tell the truth. Maybe Degales trainer,Jim McDonnell, should have used slightly different training methods and techniques prior to the fight.
Good luck to both of them in the future.
Jim mcdonnel is a prat, top trainers dont care what happens in the other fighters camps,e.g “groves got dropped in sparring”, sounded very similar to fraudley in his last fight. Booth was right to call him a w***er.
Trainer is a 1 trick pony who hasnt a clue and is a nobody I’ve never heard of him before and I can see why!!
I agree he sould deffo change like ya style nazim richards would be grate for de gale that’s how he would get to the top n if he did go to nazim I’m sceard for groves becouse every punch degale hit him with it hurt him n nazim would tell him that show him what he done rong deffo man for da job
The fact that your immediately disagreeing with a World Champion Boxer that Degale should change trainer is a joke to your knowledge as a whole. When you have a brainless child in Jim Macdonell Telling your the greatest and having no plan B when plan A went out the window it shows he simply ain’t good enough a change of trainer would be best and Emanuel Steward or Naazim Richardson are the perfect fit.