By William Mackay: Following James DeGale’s impressive 1st round TKO of Carl Dilks last Saturday night in Frank Warren’s Magnificent Seven card, DeGale and Warren said they want George Groves (10-0, 8 KO’s) next. DeGale (8-0, 6 KO’s) is ready to take on Groves and prove to him who the better fighter is.
DeGale already sees himself as the best fighter domestically and thinks he’ll be a world champion within the next 18 months or so. It’s hard to argue with DeGale, because he looked awfully impressive in overwhelming Dilks with punches on Saturday night. DeGale, a southpaw, changed stances and gave Dilks all kinds of different looks in their fight and had him looking confused.
What was really impressive was the way that DeGale went from throwing one or two shots to opening up with a big flurry of punches. When he did that, Dilks was simply not ready for the onslaught of punches and was immediately hurt.
The referee jumped in kind of quick in stopping the fight, because it looked like Dilks wasn’t all that hurt at the time. But as DeGale pointed out, Dilks was going to get beaten anyway and the referee just saved him more of a beating by stopping it when he did.
Right now, I think DeGale would dominate Groves and take him out. DeGale is a much more complex fighter and is capable of changing his game on the fly. It’s almost impossible to prepare for him, because he’s so versatile.
You can’t really focus on any one thing against him, because he’s always doing something unexpected. My guess is Groves will choose not to take the fight with DeGale, because he simply doesn’t appear ready for a guy like him. It would be a great fight, but I think Groves won’t take the fight and I don’t blame him.
I think DeGale would be a huge problem for him, as I think he would for Paul Smith and Carl Froch. DeGale has too many different gears he can shift into, whereas Groves, Froch and Smith are pretty basic fighters that give you one look only.
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