DeGale wants Bika-Periban winner for WBC 168 lb. title

By Boxing News - 06/09/2013 - Comments

degale66By Scott Gilfoid: #5 WBC, James DeGale (16-1, 11 KO’s) is targeting the winner of the June 22nd fight this month between #1 WBC, Sakio Bika (31-5-2, 21 KO’s) and Marco Antonio Periban (20-0, 13 KO’s) at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Bika and Periban are fighting for the vacant World Boxing Council 168 lb. title stripped from former WBC champion Andre Ward by the WBC after Ward suffered an injury to his right shoulder.

Last Saturday night, DeGale stopped Stjepan Bozic in the 4th round. After the fight, DeGale said to Channel 5 “I’m in the perfect position for the WBC. I’m the WBC Silver champion, I’m ranked #4 or #5 [DeGale is ranked #5]. Why don’t I fight the winner of the Bika-Periban for the WBC title? Let’s do it in London.”

DeGale is getting a little ahead of himself I’m afraid. There are two contenders ranked above him, #2 WBC, Edwin Rodriguez and #3 WBC, George Groves, and I doubt that the Bika-Periban winner will want to select DeGale out of that bunch when he’s not even ranked as high as Rodriguez or Groves. I mean, I don’t see Groves getting the fight either because he’s not ranked high enough.

If it’s any of the fighters in this bunch it’s probably going to be Edwin Rodriguez because it’s a fight where Bika wouldn’t have to travel to England to take, and I doubt he’d be open to fighting in the UK where he’d have a huge crowd rooting against him.

The reason I’m not mentioning Periban is because I see him getting whipped by Bika. Periban is a decent fringe contender, but I think his ranking is HIGHLY inflated by the WBC.

Periban hasn’t beaten anyone good enough to deserve the #4 ranking the way I see it, unless you consider his previous wins over his opponents Samuel Miller, Darnell Boone, Dhafir Smith and Francisco Sierra as being enough to give him that ranking. I don’t.

I see DeGale getting skipped over by the winner of the Bika vs. Periban fight. The winner of that fight will be looking for something bigger like a unification bout against champions Robert Stieglitz or Carl Froch.

I don’t like DeGale’s chances against Bika. If you saw how Bika looked against Andre Ward and Joe Calzaghe, I think DeGale would be in over his head against Bika.



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