By Scott Gilfoid: British super middleweight champion Paul Smith (29-1, 15 KO’s) has the bad luck of facing talented unbeaten 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist James DeGale (8-0, 6 KO’s) on December 11th at the Echo Arena, Liverpool, Merseyside. This is supposed to be Smith’s last fight at this level before moving up to the world class level after this fight. Unfortunately, the move to the world level will have to wait a while longer for Smith, because I fully expect him to get spanked by DeGale and sent right back to the starting blocks having to fight his way back up to the British title level.

I know Smith would like to challenge for the European and eventually for one of the major titles at the world level, but sadly I don’t see it happening. DeGale is just too versatile, powerful and has far too many skills for the limited Smith to win this fight. This isn’t the typical fodder opponent that you see coming up the ranks. DeGale is pure quality and has the the makings of a future world champion. Smith, in contrast, is comfortable at this level and I can’t see him rising above it and having any success.

I’ve seen a number of Smith’s fights and I just don’t see the athleticism and the coordination to beat a fighter in DeGale’s class. To me, Smith just looks too clumsy on his feet to beat a guy like DeGale. I thought Smith looked perfectly awful against Steven Bendall, Tony Quigley and Tony Dodson. That was some really bad fighting. I don’t what it is but the guys seems to fall forward with every punch and winds up in an ugly clinch.

A lot of the times his head bangs into his opponents during these clinches. I don’t know what his trainer can do to fix this problem because it seems like a coordination thing more than anything. DeGale is going to make him look like a pupil on December 11th. This is going to be a slaughter of the first order. It’ll be a good experience for DeGale because he needs to get these lower preliminary guys out of the way so that he can start to take on the cream of the crop at the world level in the near future.