By Scott Gilfoid: James DeGale (10-1, 8 KO’s) has his chance to redeem himself on Saturday in his crucial fight against EBU super middleweight champion Piotr Wilczewski (29-1, 10 KO’s) at the Echo Arena, Liverpool, England. This is the make or break fight for DeGale, one that he cannot afford to lose if he wants to become one of the major players in the super middleweight division.

Wilczewski, 33, is a talented fighter with excellent boxing skills with recent wins over the likes of Amin Asikainen and Karlo Tabaghua. Wilczewski is one of those kinds of fighters that does everything well – punch, move, defend and throw with power when he needs to. To me, he’s a better fighter than Groves with a lot more ways to beat you. DeGale is going to have to bring his A-game if he wants to beat this guy, because Wilczewski will be boxing all night long and changing things up to keep DeGale guessing.

Wilczewski has already seen DeGale off balance from his loss to Groves, so you can expect him playing a lot of games in hopes of duplicating what Groves did. But it’s going to be DeGale’s job to take the fight to Wilczewski and force him to fight. DeGale can’t let Wilczewski run around the ring and try to steal rounds.

DeGale lost his last fight against Groves by a 12 round decision last May in a fight that DeGale should have won. If you ask British boxing fans who won the fight it comes down pretty much whether they like DeGale or not. If they hate him, then they unanimously saw DeGale losing and losing badly. But for the more neutral fans, they saw DeGale winning the fight, as did I. I thought DeGale fought superbly in the 2nd half of the fight after making adjustments to Groves hit and run style of fighting, which DeGale really wasn’t prepared for.