By Scott Gilfoid: The 6’0 1/2″ EBU super middleweight champion James DeGale (11-1, 8 KO’s) will be literally towering over his 5’7 1/2″ opponent Cristian Sanavia (45-5-1, 13 KO’s) tonight in the 26-year-old DeGale’s first defense of his title at the Arena Nord, Fredsriskshavmn, in Denmark.

Although DeGale really should be facing better opposition than this, preferably against world class opposition, his promoter is keeping the training wheels on DeGale by putting him in with lower level fodder like Sanavia. I guess I can’t blame him because DeGale looked positively awful in his last fight against Piotr Wilczewski last October, winning a 12 round majority decision to pick up the European Boxing Union 168 pound title with the controversial win.

I thought DeGale lost, but it shows you how flawed the guy is. I mean, if DeGale can’t even beat a fighter like Wilczewski then he doesn’t belong being ranked in the top 15, does he? This is probably why he’s facing fighter in the class of a Sanavia rather than a top tier guy that would help his career. I just hope DeGale doesn’t waste too much time being held back in the lower level fights, because he’s not going to learn anything fighting guys like Sanavia. But I’m not so certain that DeGale has the talent to do much more than that.

He doesn’t have the hand speed, power or the boxing ability to compete against the better opposition right now, and those things are usually in place by the a fighter is as old as DeGale is. It’s good that he won a gold medial in the 2008 Olympics, but it’s meaningless because he’s been exposed at the pro level as having too many flaws for him to do much more than shining in first four rounds of his fights.

Sanavia reminds me a lot of Ricky Hatton. He’s fighting in the wrong division because he doesn’t have the height or the arm length to beat the better fighters. I still think he can probably fight well enough to get a draw or lose by a close decision tonight against DeGale if can put enough pressure on him.