DeGale: Froch is making every excuse not to fight me

By Boxing News - 10/02/2014 - Comments

degale778By Scott Gilfoid: #1 IBF James DeGale (19-1, 13 KOs) will be fighting next month on November 22nd on the undercard of the Sky Box Office pay-per-view card headlined by Tony Bellew vs. Nathan Cleverly 2 at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, UK.

DeGale, 28, is not a happy camper because the guy he wants to fight, IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch, hasn’t acted like he’s thrilled about taking a fight against DeGale. Froch says he won’t be pushed into the fight against DeGale, even though the International Boxing Federation has already made DeGale his mandatory challenger after his 4th round TKO win over Brandon Gonzales last May.

Froch prefers to face guys that interest him such as Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, Mikkel Kessler or Anthony Dirrell. He’s not interested in facing DeGale, who he feels that he’d have a hard time getting up for because he says he already knows the outcome of the fight. Froch thinks he’ll have no problems knocking DeGale out.

“He is making every excuse not to fight me and if I was him, I wouldn’t fight me either because when he loses to me – and loses well – his credibility, his ego and his legacy would all be damaged,” DeGale said to Skysports.com.

I don’t know if it’s all about that. Froch created a poll on his Facebook page asking boxing fans who they preferred to see him fight next out of a list of the following fighters: DeGale, Chavez Jr and Gennady Golovkin.

Not surprisingly, DeGale came in dead last, whereas Golovkin came in at No.1 and Chavez Jr came in No.2. Froch appears to be more interested in fighting Chavez Jr than he does against Golovkin because he sees Chavez Jr as being capable of bringing in more fans than Golovkin.

I don’t think anyone would argue the point that Golovkin is the far superior fighter than Chavez Jr. If you doubt then you need to look at their sparring session on Youtube. It was totally one-sided with Golovkin just pummeling Chavez Jr.

Froch seems to be more interested in the amount of fans that would see the fight rather than him taking on the best. Chavez Jr had a ton of fans in the U.S before he was beaten by Sergio Martinez, but ever since that loss, he appears to have taken a hit in terms of the fans he’s lost.

“Carl Froch doesn’t want to fight me,” DeGale said. “If I was him I would retire and give up and just swerve it because he’s going to lose.”

DeGale should be happy that Froch isn’t taking the fight with him, because the chances are he’d only lose to him. At least this way DeGale can challenge for the IBF strap after Froch is either stripped by the IBF or he vacates the belt. If Froch were to give up the title right now, DeGale would likely be facing someone like #4 Gilbert Ramirez, #5 Julius Jackson or #6 Maksim Vlasov for the vacant IBF title.

DeGale will be facing a former world title challenger on November 22nd. They’re still not saying who the guy is, but the name is expected to be announced next Wednesday. Given that he’s a former world title challenger, it means someone who challenged for one of the belts and got beaten.

That could literally be anyone. But I have a feeling that whoever it is, it’s not going to be someone that is a real threat to beating DeGale. I see Eddie Hearn playing it safe by putting him in with someone like Peter Manfredo, Jr or Marco Antonio Periban.



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