By Scott Gilfoid: EBU super middleweight champion James DeGale (11-1. 8 KO’s) makes his first and what could be his only title defense of his European Boxing Union title on March 16th against the ferocious body puncher and former WBC super middleweight champion Cristian Sanavia (45-5-1, 13 KO’s) at the Wembley Arena in London, UK.

This fight is going to be on the same card as George Groves vs. Kenny Anderson. In theory, it should and would be the perfect opportunity for DeGale to put in an impressive performance against Sanavia to help hype interest in a Groves-DeGale rematch.

However, I think DeGale is going to struggle with Sanavia’s body punching and we could see DeGale hitting the canvas once or twice en route to losing by a knockout. It’s going to be bad for him and his career because he’s supposed to be able to beat the 36-year-old 5’7 ½” Sanavia but I don’t think he will. DeGale looked terrible in winning a questionable 12 round majority decision over Piotr Wilczewski in his last fight last October.

I thought DeGale should have lost that fight by at least two rounds. He can’t handle power shots and he doesn’t punch hard enough to keep these kinds of fighters off of him. Sanavia won’t be the least affected by DeGale’s slapping punches and will walk right through those shots to punish him on the inside ala Ricky Hatton.

DeGale can take out the weak-chinned fighters but against guys that can actually take a punch, he’s pretty much useless against them. Sanavia will take his shots and give him a royal beating in this fight and take his paper EBU title away from him in the process. That will of course likely ruin permanently the chances of a DeGale-Groves fight for the future unfortunately but it’s better that DeGale be exposed now then later.