By Scott Gilfoid: EBU super middleweight champion James DeGale (11-1, 8 KO’s) hasn’t had any luck at all in trying to get George Groves (14-0, 11 KO’s) back into the ring ever since losing to him by a questionable 12 round majority decision a year ago in May of last year. DeGale fought well enough to win the fight, but the crowd was against him and Groves changed battle tactics by running the entire fight instead of looking to mix it up with him.
For DeGale, 26, to get a rematch with Groves, he’ll have to beat Italy’s Cristian Sanavia (45-5-1, 13 KO’s) this Saturday night at the Arena Nord, in Frederikshavri in Denmark. DeGale, 6’0″, needs to use his height and reach to dominate the 5’7″ pressure fighter Sanavia.
DeGale needs to not only beat Sanavia, but beat him in an impressive enough victory to force Groves to give him a rematch. DeGale has to have the boxing public behind him in asking for the fight, because anything short of that will likely lead to Groves continuing to ignore DeGale.
Groves doesn’t have a lot of options at this point in time after he suffered an injury this week while trying to get ready for a now cancelled May 5th fight against WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz in Germany. Groves’ injury will keep him out of the gym for as long as 10 weeks while he recovers. In the meantime, Groves is no longer the mandatory challenger for Stieglitz, having been replaced by #2 WBO Arthur Abraham. This means that the only fight that Groves has to look forward to is a possible bout against Kenny Anderson on June 30th in their rematch.
DeGale should be able to get past Sanavia, but it won’t be easy because he’s an excellent inside fighter and a good pressure fighter as well. DeGale doesn’t do well against pressure fighters and we could see a upset in this fight with Sanavia winning. If DeGale lets Sanavia in close to fight him it could turn this fight into another life and death battle for DeGale similar to his last fight against Piotr Wilczewski. I had DeGale losing that fight, and it just goes to show you how much work DeGale has to do before he’ll be considered a true world class fighter. Wilczewski was easily handled by Arthur Abraham recently, who I don’t consider a very good fighter. DeGale’s lack of power and footwork will be a problem for him against Sanavia unless he’s able to move around a big and put more pressure on him. It seemed like Wilczewski was the aggressor against DeGale, and it should have been the other way around.
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