By Scott Gilfoid: James DeGale (12-1, 9 KO’s) made his first defense of his EBU super middleweight title last Saturday night in stopping his mandatory challenger 37-year-old Cristian Sanavia (45-6-1, 13 KO’s) in the 4th round of a pretty much one-sided fight. DeGale knocked the little 5’7 1/2″ Sanavia down three times in the 4th to get the stoppage victory.

The referee Manuel Oliver Palomo appeared to blow it when he missed a knockdown in the 3rd when Sanavia landed a sweeping right hand that caught DeGale off guard, knocking him to the canvas where DeGale had to use his right glove to keep from falling flat. That was clearly a knockdown, and the referee blew it. Thank god it didn’t having a bearing in the fight, because that would have been awful to see DeGale spared a loss just because the referee blew a knockdown call.

So, my question is whether the 26-year-old DeGale will continue to face the lesser 2nd tier fighters at the Euro level as he defends his European Boxing Union title again and again or will he man up and go after at least a world class fighter so he can continue to improve? DeGale recently declined to step in for George Groves against WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz on May 5th when Groves injured his nose during training for the fight. That’s pretty incredible, isn’t it? DeGale says no to a fight against a limited paper champion like Stieglitz in order to take the easy fight that means nothing against Sanavia. I could smell fear two thousand miles away with that one. DeGale can’t be turning down title fights against paper champions, because believe me, it doesn’t get any better than that. If one of the Dirrell brothers snatches up the WBO title, DeGale could sit on the sidelines for the remainder of his career without ever winning a title, because Andre Ward already has two of the 168 pound titles in his possession. And the other title is held by IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute. DeGale certainly isn’t ever going to be that guy. His one and only chance was against Stieglitz.

If they want to take things slowly, then I’d at least like to see DeGale fight Groves again or some of the other fringe contenders at super middleweight.