DeGale vs. Bozic tonight

By Boxing News - 06/08/2013 - Comments

degale546By Scott Gilfoid: WBC Silver super middleweight champion James DeGale (15-1, 10 KO’s) will be defending his strap tonight against 2nd tier fighter Stjepan Bozic (26-6, 17 KO’s) at the Glow, Bluewater, Greehithe, Kent, UK. This is a mismatch, but maybe not quite as bad as DeGale’s last mismatch against Sebastien Demers last month but it’s awfully close to being that bad. DeGale says he’s going to start facing better opposition after this fight. I hope so.

DeGale said to I Film London “It’s a solid test, but he’s not in the top 10. After this fight I’ll be stepping it up. My next fight will be in September. It will be an eliminator. You’re going to see a much different fighter.”

I’ll believe that when I see it. At this point I have hard time imagining seeing DeGale against even a fringe contender because he’s been matched so poorly since his loss to George Groves two years ago. The best guy he fought since then was Piotr Wilczweski, a European level fighter and DeGale had to struggle badly to defeat him. Last year, DeGale looked completely awful in beating Hadillah Mohoumadi by a 12 round decision.

Bozic was blown away in only two rounds by Arthur Abraham two years ago. The fight was over so quickly that it was difficult to get a gauge of how good Bozic was because he was just mowed down in that fight. He also lost to German fighter Henry Weber in 2011, and I don’t rate Weber as being a good fighter.

If DeGale is planning on fighting in September in an eliminator bout, I think Bozic isn’t good preparation for him to get him ready for a fight like that. I guess if it’s a really weak contender with an inflated ranking like we sometimes see, then I can see DeGale doing well. It might not matter that DeGale has fought just weak opponents since the fight with Groves, but if it’s someone good Edwin Rodriguez, Lucian Bute or Thomas Oosthuizen, then I see DeGale struggling and getting beaten. He’s had too many powder puff opponents and he’s going to be in shock once he finally steps it up a couple levels.



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