By Sean McDaniel: Unable to get a fight with unbeaten 22-year-old Commonwealth super middleweight champion George Groves (10-0, 8 KO’s), unbeaten former 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist had some choice things to say about Groves in an article today at the thesun.co.uk, saying “He’s [Paul Smith] never bad mouthed me, unlike that ugly ginger kid George Groves. Groves is the kind of boxer I can’t stand because he’s trying to live off my name and by Olympic Gold Medal.” DeGale, 24, is in the fast lane with his pro career scheduled to face British super middleweight champion Paul Smith (29-1, 15 KO’s) on December 11th at the Echo Arena, in Liverpool, England.

DeGale had been hoping to fight Groves before moving up to bigger and better things in the division but Groves and his promotional company couldn’t put together a fight with DeGale and his promoter. DeGale is really skeptical at this point whether Groves ever wanted the fight with him. Rather than wait for some unknown point in the future for Groves to finally agree to fight him, DeGale has opted to fight the much more experienced and arguably dangerous super middleweight Paul Smith on 12/11.

One can understand why Groves and his management wouldn’t be so eager to fight Groves, because DeGale is really hard to fight because of his movement, power and punching angle from his shots. It’s almost impossible to fight DeGale because you don’t know where his punches are coming from, and he’s also an excellent counter puncher. In contrast, Groves is more of the type of fighter that likes to walk down his opposition. He doesn’t move well, but is good if he can get a fighter to stand in front of him.