DeGale: I’ll be world champion before the next Olympics

By Boxing News - 08/13/2012 - Comments

Image: DeGale: I'll be world champion before the next OlympicsBy Scott Gilfoid: EBU super middleweight champion James DeGale (12-1, 9 KO’s) feels he’s got what it takes to become a world champion at middleweight within in the next four years. I wish I could agree with him but I’ve stopping drinking the DeGale Kool-aid a long time ago after seeing him struggle against guys that he should have been able to dominate.

DeGale told the Independent.co.uk “One things for sure, I’ll be a world champion well before the next Olympics. That’s a promise.”

I think that’s a dream. DeGale isn’t going to be talented fighters like WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward, and I can’t even see him beating WBO champ Robert Stieglitz or IBF champ Carl Froch. Those guys have better power and there’s really not a place for a fighter with little power like DeGale in the super middleweight division. Besides those guys, DeGale would have serious problems against the talented Dirrell brothers, Adonis Stevenson, Edwin Rodriguez, Don George, Sakio Bika, Arthur Abraham, Kelly Pavlik, Lucian Bute, Renan St Juste, Mikkel Kessler, Thomas Oosthuizen, Nikola Sjekloca, Rowland Bryant, and Badou Jack.

Honestly, the super middleweight division is simply too stacked for guys like DeGale and Groves. They can beat the Euro level fighters, but those guys I’ve mentioned have too much for them. DeGale and Groves both need to move up to light heavyweight because that division is weak as heck, and I can see both of them winning titles no problem at some point. All they got to do is go after the WBO paper champion Nathan Cleverly and pick off his trap, if they can get a fight against him that is.

DeGale, a 2008 Olympic Gold medal winner for Britain, misses fighting in the Olympics and wishes he could have fought in this years’ Olympics. I think DeGale would struggle badly, though. The middleweight gold medalist for the 2012 Olympics, Ryota Murata from Japan, would do a number on DeGale in my view, and he’d have nothing to show for it.



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