By Mark Johnston: James “Chunky” Degale claimed a unanimous decision over Dyah Davis in Bluewater, Kent to move to 17-0 (11 KO) and retain his WBC Silver super middleweight title for a second time. Degale barely put a foot wrong in this bout tonight as he scored 118-110 on all three of the judges cards.

Defensively he was excellent, (the fact he walked away with only a slight mark below his left eye after 12 rounds of professional boxing proves this) he was making Davis miss and his counters were accurate if not hurtful. Coming forward he looked pretty good his hands were quick and accurate but he didn’t have the power to get his opponent out of there. However after 8 rounds he started to look a little gassed and gifted his man an opportunity to come back into it which no disrespect to Davies a better opponent may have taken. Normal service was resumed in the 10th as Degale coasted to victory over the final 9 minutes.

All this being said I don’t know what it is about the 2008 Olympic gold medallist but he just fails to excite me but I guess it is the same reason he is on channel 5. In a week where there is a great amount of attention on the super middleweight division I feel he needed to do more to grab his share of the limelight.

Tonight also saw the return of Andre Ward the WBA Super champion after a long lay off from injury as he scored an impressive 118-106 win over Edwin Rodriguez after claiming all 12 rounds (both fighters deducted 2 points in the 4th) and next Saturday sees the most anticipated all British showdown in years as Carl Froch takes on George Groves for the WBA Super (again) and IBF crowns.

After the fight Degale again stated his intention to fight for a world title in 2014 but I don’t think he has anything in his arsenal to trouble either Froch, Ward or WBC champ Sakio Bika and I suspect quite a few others in the division such as Mikkel Kessler and WBO king Robert Stieglitz would be looking him as a potential scalp for their CV and I think his promoter Mick Hennessy knows this from his comments during the same interview. As a Brit I would like to see him reach the top but unfortunately I see Degale as being a level just below where he wants to be and while he will certainly get world title shots in the not so distant future I cant see him being a champion or certainly not a long term champion.