By Allan Fox: Promoter Floyd Mayweather Jr. says he would like to see his fighter WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack (20-1-1, 12 KOs) face IBF 168lb champion James DeGale (22-1, 14 KOs) in a unification fight in the near future. Mayweather, who heads Mayweather Promotions, says he would like to put together a fight between DeGale and Badou if the two of them can keep winning.
Mayweather figures that a couple of fights from now, the two champions should be able to face each other in a unification match.
Badou won the WBC title with an upset 12 round majority decision in April of last year over Anthony Dirrell. Badou was selected for Dirrell in a voluntary defense and it was a fight that Dirrell was supposed to win. However, Badou put a lot of pressure on Dirrell and walked him down all night long to grind out a fairly easy 12 round decision victory.
In Badou’s first defense of his WBC title, he beat #1 WBC George Groves by a 12 round split decision last September on the undercard of the Mayweather vs. Andre Berto fight on Showtime pay-per-view. It was a good performance by Badou, who was able to knock Groves down in the 1st round and then take the fight to him in the second half of the contest to get the win.
It was still a close affair to Groves fighting effectively in the first half of the fight.
“James DeGale is a very, very good fighter and he is solid,” Mayweather said to the BBC.com “I like him. A lot of personality. The ultimate goal is for him and Badou to fight in a unification bout. Do I think that can happen? Absolutely. He talked to me the other day when I was in Los Angeles at the fights. He said he would like to fight Badou Jack. But everything takes time. Eventually it will happen.”
Badou has talked about wanting to fight former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. The Badou vs. Chavez Jr. fight is being talked about for April of this year. If Badou can win that fight, then it’s possible he could face DeGale in a unification. All bets are off if Chavez Jr. wins. He could do anything, and he might be enthralled with facing DeGale.
A fight between Chavez Jr. and Gilberto Ramirez would be a great fight if Ramirez can get past WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham in their contest on April 9 on the undercard of the Manny Pacquiao vs. Tim Bradley card on HBO PPV at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“If he continues to win and Badou continues to win, which I truly believe both will, the ultimate goal is to match those two in a super bout, down the line,” Mayweather said.
“A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t” – Jack Dempsey. pic.twitter.com/C0HEhCmpTa
— MayweatherPromotions (@MayweatherPromo) January 22, 2016
Badou looks kind of shaky right now as the WBC champion, but he probably has enough to beat a limited fighter like Chavez Jr., who hasn’t looked good since his win over Brian Vera in March 2014. There’s major questions about the dedication that Chavez Jr. has for the sport, as he’s had weight problems in the last four years of his career.
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