DeGale vs. Sanavia on April 21 in Denmark

By Boxing News - 03/15/2012 - Comments

Image: DeGale vs. Sanavia on April 21 in DenmarkBy William Mackay: EBU super middleweight champion James DeGale (11-1, 8 KO’s) will be making his first defense of his title against 37-year-old 2nd tier fighter Cristian Sanavia (45-5-1, 13 KO’s) at the Arena Nord, Frederikshavn, Denmark.

DeGale, 26, has been going through promotional issues recently and he really should already defended his European Boxing Union title. He’s not taking on anyone dangerous as you can see, as the Italian Sanavia is only 5’7 1/2″ tall and is incredibly short to be fighting at middleweight. DeGale should be able to win this fight just by staying on the outside out of the reach of the shorter Sanavia.

Sanavia’s promoters from Round Zero won the purse bids for the fight which is why it’s taking place in Denmark rather than the UK. I suppose it would have made a lot more sense for it to take place in Italy rather than Denmark, though.

DeGale, #5 WBO, #8 WBC, needs a win to stay in contention for an eventual world title shot against champions like Andre Ward and the winner of the Robert Stieglitz vs. George Groves bout next month. DeGale would likely better than to be able to fight Groves again to try and avenge his loss to him from last May in the UK. Groves has been slow in showing interest in fighting DeGale again.

There’s not much to say about Sanavia. He twice challenged WBC super middleweight champion Markus Beyer and lost both fights. Sanavia would later lose twice to Karo Murat.

DeGale is coming off an unimpressive win over Piotr Wilczewski to capture the EBU title last October.

DeGale really needs the Sanavia win to keep things going smoothly for him for his eventual world title shot. He’d like to fight Groves but that probably won’t happen unless Groves somehow can get by his next opponent WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz.



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