By Sean McDaniel: Unbeaten British super middleweight champion James DeGale (9-0, 7 KO’s) was recently bumped up a top 10 position by the World Boxing Organization. For DeGale, a 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist, this puts him within reach of a world title shot against WBO super middleweight champion Roberto Stieglitz. However, DeGale is interested in facing anyone and says he’d like to fight Andre Dirrell, Stieglitz, Jean Paul Mendy and Renan St. Juste.

Any one of those fighters would be a good name for DeGale to add to his resume. DeGale destroyed Paul Smith by a 9th round TKO to capture the British super middleweight title on December 11th. DeGale looked good throughout, landing hard shots while being pressured by Smith. It was thought going into the fight that Smith might have too much power and experience for DeGale. As it turns out, DeGale had far too much talent, speed and power for the limited Smith and the fight turned out to be a huge mismatch.

DeGale had this to say about fighting Dirrell, Stieglitz, Abraham, Mendy and St. Juste: “I’d happily take on any of those fighters…Obviously the fight I really want is against the ugly kid [referring to George Groves], but if he says ‘no’ for a second time, then I might even leave the domestic level behind and crack straight on with the European level opposition.”

DeGale is wasting his breath hoping that Groves will fight him. That’s not going to happen. Groves’ management aren’t going to risk putting him in with DeGale, especially after DeGale’s impressive performance against Smith. DeGale needs to forget about that fight and just move on briefly to the European level and then the world level. Groves is a backwards move for DeGale right now. He’s a better than him and he won’t get much from beating him up.