By Sean McDaniel: James DeGale (11-1, 8 KO’s) recently struggled in beating EBU super middleweight champion Piotr Wilczewski by a 12 round majority decision in his last outing in October. DeGale got the win, which nice, but he didn’t look good and was overpowered for most of the fight by the light hitting Wilczewski.

DeGale’s poor foot movement and slapping punching style were ineffective against the stronger Wilczewski. Although DeGale did pull out the win by a narrow margin, he was exposed in the fight and it showed that he’s not ready to face the best fighters in the super middleweight division just yet.

Unless DeGale starts showing some improvement real soon it seems he may not ever be in the class of guys like Mikkel Kessler, Andre Ward, Lucian Bute, and Carl Froch. He’s young still at only 25, but he looks to be the exact same fighter physically and in terms of boxing skills that he was when he first turned pro in 2009.

For this fight on January 27th, DeGale has been matched week against Spaniard Jose Maria Guerrero (29-2-1, 11 KO’s) in a 12 round bout. Initially it was thought that DeGale was being matched weak due to his promoter wanting to squeeze in one more fight in 2011, but now that the fight has been moved to January, it seems more likely that DeGale is being matched weak because he’s shown in his last couple of fights that he still has a lot to learn and isn’t ready for tough fights right about now.

And that goes for a rematch against George Groves, who beat DeGale earlier this year in May by a 12 round decision. DeGale looked even worse in his last fight than he did in the Groves fight, and it makes no sense to throw DeGale back out in a situation where he might fail.

DeGale should get by Guerrero as long as he doesn’t get hit with anything big. Guerrero can’t punch, so there is a good chance that DeGale will shine in this fight.