By Sean McDaniel: After his first fight as a professional, former 2008 middleweight Gold Medalist for Britain James DeGale (1-0) finds himself already facing a tremendous amount of criticism after fighting poorly in his four-round defeat of Vepkhia Tchilaia (9-9, 5 KOs) at the National Indoor Arena, Birmingham, West Midlands. DeGale, 23, won all four rounds of the fight and ended up winning by a commanding 40-36 score on the referee’s decision, but he ended up fighting much worse than the other British Olympians on the same card Frankie Gavin and Billy Joe Saunders.
That wasn’t supposed to be, because DeGale was the gold medal winner, the one that some people think could have the skills to take him to the top and win a middleweight title in the future. However, he surely didn’t fight like a future middleweight champion nor did he look good enough to even be a contender.
It looks as if the boxing fans at ringside felt the same way I did, as they really let DeGale have it by booing him loudly from the 2nd round on. Certainly, no one ever expected that DeGale would someday be an eye-pleasing power puncher, but they did expect him to be able to look good enough to pick apart an 9-8 fighter like the one he faced on Saturday night.
He didn’t though. DeGale fought in a lazy, energy conserving pattern throughout the fight, throwing a lazy jab, and showing poor form in throwing his punches. While he’s always been considered an unorthodox puncher, but I felt that his technique would get better after the Olympics. However, after watching his throw a lot of slapping punches, including a high number of backhands, I’m convinced that DeGale may be a lost cause as a fighter – someone incapable of being anymore than a good four round fighter with awful technique, who once he goes beyond the 4th he’ll fall steadily apart.
Say what you want about his opponent from Georgia, he was able to land some good shots in the fight and succeeded in swelling up DeGale’s right eye. That’s not a good sign for someone who was expected to be much better than what he looked like.
Of course, this is still just his first fight and he has a lot of time to improve in the future, but I’m not so certain that he will. What’s missing here, as in the case of another failed British fighter Audley Harrison, is a lack of power, urgency and an overall style that seems to suggest a fighter not willing to fight hard enough when needed.
It’s fascinating, if not confusing, that DeGale’s obvious flaws weren’t seen by the promotional team that signed him, because if they saw what I could see, they would have been perhaps better served to pay him much less money. In the Olympics, DeGale looked gassed by the 4th round against Emilio Correa and also against Darren Sutherland, as if he had fought to his limit in beating both of them.
I remember thinking that if the fights with either of them had gone on for another couple of rounds, DeGale would have started taking punishment and would have eventually lost. I could be wrong, but I felt that in looking at him in both of those fights.
Now, as a pro, DeGale is still not showing the qualities needed to be a top fighter. I’m hoping that he can be taught these things but I’m not holding out hope. He’s missing too many ingredients to make it as a pro and no matter how much training is given to him, he will still come up lacking.
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