DeGale giving up EBU super middleweight title to look for bigger fights

By Boxing News - 12/18/2012 - Comments

degale43By Scott Gilfoid: WBC Silver super middleweight champion James DeGale (14-1, 9 KO’s) has decided to vacate his EBU super middleweight title that he had held for the past year. DeGale had to give up one of the straps, and he figured that the WBC Silver 168 title would enable him to get bigger fights than the ones that were available to him defending his EBU strap in a dutiful manner.

All I can say is it’s about time. What a waste it was for DeGale to be holding down the EBU strap and having to defend it against the likes of Cristian Sanavia and Hadillah Moumadi.

If I was DeGale’s promoter I would have had DeGale vacate immediately after he beat former EBU champion Piotr Wilczewski last year. DeGale would have saved himself two wasted fights, and he could have taken on some worthy opponents.

DeGale said to thesun.co.uk “It’s a shame that I have had to choose between the two championship belts I hold…the WBC [Silver] belt will give me a wider choice of world class opponents.”

It’s true that dumping the European Boxing Union title belt will give DeGale an opportunity to face better opposition, but in the same token I don’t think that DeGale has the talent to beat those better fighters.

If you put DeGale in with contenders like Edwin Rodriguez, Sakio Bika, Adonis Stevenson or the Dirrell brothers, DeGale is going to lose those fights.

Stevenson would knock him out, the Dirrell brothers are so much faster than DeGale, it would be like he’s fighting in slow motion against those guys.

I do think DeGale can beat some of the top contenders, but he’d have to be really careful with who he faces.

I hope for DeGale’s sake that he’s being positioned to try and fight the WBO champ Arthur Abraham because he’s the only champion out of the bunch that DeGale has a slight chance of beating. All the other 168 pound champs would likely knock DeGale out.



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