By Sean McDaniel: Undefeated British super middleweight champion James DeGale (10-0, 8 Ko’s) has made a little wager with challenger George Groves for Saturday’s fight at the O2 Arena in London, England. DeGale, 25, bet to match the earnings that Groves is making tomorrow night if Groves wins the fight. This is a pretty risky bet, because the two fighters are supposedly evenly match to the point where some people see it as a toss-up fight. However, it does show you how confident that DeGale is at the outcome.

It may be that he’ll have a hard time looking at himself in the mirror if he loses the fight and is ready to give up the money to punish himself. A loss for DeGale would say a lot about his chances of making it big in the future, because Groves, at least on paper, is a guy that DeGale should be able to beat before moving up to the world class level. Groves is a good fighter, but not really world class. If DeGale can’t beat Groves, it will be difficult for him to improve enough to beat the better fighters in the division like Andre Ward, Lucian Bute, Mikkel Kessler and Carl Froch.

“I’m so confident, I will cover your wage,” DeGale said in an article at the sun.co.uk. “You have the chance to double your money. The drinks are on me on Saturday! I don’t want him to get a pay-day, so when I win, I’ll get his purse.”

Groves jumped at the chance immediately, saying “I’ve doubled my wages now!”

Groves is still considered to be the underdog in this fight and is going to have perform a lot better than he’s shown in recent fights. If I was guess a winner between them on Saturday, I’d go with DeGale. He’s a lot more athletic, throws more combinations and is more relaxed. He seems to be better than Groves in every facet of his game – from offensive skills to the defensive side. Groves doesn’t move his head when he fights and is stiff. It will be interesting to see if Groves’ sparring with American Andre Dirrell has helped him enough to compete beyond the 4th round. Groves will likely be competitive that long, but once it goes into 2nd half of the fight, he’s going to have some problems as he wears down and the more relaxed DeGale gets warmed up.