By Scott Gilfoid: If unbeaten super middleweight prospect James DeGale (8-0, 6 KO’s) wants to look for a weakness in his next opponent British super middleweight champion Paul Smith (29-1, 15 KO’s), then he needs to focus on using a lot of uppercuts to exploit Smith’s problems with dealing with those kinds of punches. Smith, 28, doesn’t seem to have any defense for an uppercut no matter how many times his opponents might throw one. In his fights with Tony Quigley and Tony Dodson, Smith was repeatedly tagged with these kinds of shots when he would come inside looking to clinch. Smith spends a good portion of every fight clinching after throwing a punch.

As we saw in Smith’s unimpressive 12 round decision over Dodson in March, Smith really doesn’t throw combinations. He’s all about throwing one punch at a time and then immediately grabbing his opponents to keep them from nailing him and exposing his poor defense. Smith isn’t a big puncher, and should be focusing on learning how to throw combinations in his fights, yet he continues to try and throw single power shots. Smith is so predicable it’s not even funny. DeGale is going to see what I’ve seen in Smith’s fights and will take advantage of this by battering Smith combinations. I think it’s safe to say that Smith will be losing his British super middleweight title on December 11th when he faces DeGale at the Echo Arena, in Liverpool, England.

DeGale, the 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist for the UK, is just world’s apart compared to the slow one punch at a time Smith. What makes Smith so hard to watch is his tendency to grab immediately after throwing one of his single shots. Trying to grab a talented fighter like DeGale will be bad for Smith’s health because DeGale will punish him with uppercuts and short rights and lefts while Smith is trying to get a much needed rest break. I can see this fight ending as quickly as DeGale’s recent 1st round TKO win over Carl Dilks in September. Dilks is about as fast as Smith, and he was no match for DeGale.