By William Mackay: Former 2008 Olympic Gold Medal winner James DeGale (7-0, 5 KO’s) looked slow of hand and slow of foot and more than a little sloppy in stopping an overmatched, slow and punching Sam Horton (15-2, 2 KO’s) in the 5th round last Saturday night on the undercard of the Michael Katsidis vs. Kevin Mitchell lightweight clash at Upton Park, West Ham in London. DeGale, formerly a middleweight in the Olympics and now fighting as a super middleweight, dropped Horton two times in the fight. It seemed that DeGale, at times, was merely toying with Horton.

The end came in the 5th when DeGale landed a big right uppercut that badly hurt Horton, snapping his head back. DeGale then finished him off with a left hand and a final right as Horton was falling. While it’s nice that DeGale won the fight, he looked slow and was hit often by the even slower Horton. This wouldn’t matter if all DeGale wanted to be was a local fighter. I think he would do well on the local British fight scene and maybe even the European level. But I didn’t see the kind of physical skills, defense, hand speed or power that would make me think that DeGale would be able to succeed against the top super middleweights in the division.

He gets hit too much and the sloppy style of fighting and the lack of hand speed would be a major problem against the likes of Lucian Bute, Andre Ward, Andre Dirrell, Carl Froch, Mikkel Kessler, and Allan Green. I think those fighters would be able to drive truck through the wide open defense that I saw from DeGale last Saturday night. He seems slow to react to incoming fire and takes shots too cleanly. That’s not good because DeGale has been facing slow fighters, ones with little hand speed or power. I’d hate to think what would happen if DeGale was put in with the world class opposition in the super middleweight division. At 23, DeGale may be able to wait out some of them, but Dirrell and Ward will be there in the future because they’re both young. I can’t see DeGale ever beating them. I also have my doubts whether DeGale can beat fellow British fighter George Groves. I think he might be too power and much too polished a fighter.

Against Horton, DeGale showed a tendency to hold and hit, especially when throwing uppercuts. He would sometimes hook his other arm around the neck of Horton and then while holding him in place, DeGale would land an uppercut. I’ve seen him use this move in his other fights. He may get away with that on a local level but he’ll lose points for that move against top level opposition. He needs stop with that. It might not matter, though, because he would have his hands full as it is against much of the top 10 opposition right now. DeGale is also still throwing a lot of slapping and cuffing shots. He almost knocked Horton down in the 2nd with a cuffing shot around the neck. Later on in the round, DeGale landed a nice left hand that sent Horton down on the canvas, holding onto the ropes with one of his hands to keep partially up. However, DeGale finished the round looking bad by holding Horton around the neck and hitting him with an uppercut with his other hand.

Overall, I wasn’t impressed with DeGale. He needs a lot of work and might need an American trainer to rid himself of his bad habits he’s picked up over the years. I see him as being too sloppy and too wide open defensively to amount to much at the world level. I’m sure he’ll be able to pick up an impressive record if he keeps fighting the likes of Horton, but he’ll be overmatched once they put him in tough against a world class fighter unless he can make big improvements in his game. Right now, I see DeGale as a 2nd tier fighter and nothing close to the top tier.