degale66666 By Scott Gilfoid: In a curious move, IBF super middleweight champion James DeGale (21-1, 14 KOs) has signed with American adviser Al Haymon, at least that’s what the 29-year-old DeGale is saying on his social media account.

DeGale is with Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn though, so it’s hard to say how this signing with Haymon will have an impact on DeGale’s career other than resulting in his fights from the UK being piped into the United States on Premier Boxing Champions on one of the networks like NBC, CBS, ESPN or Showtime.

I don’t really know how DeGale signing with Haymon changes anything if Hearn is going to be the one match-making for him. If all we’re going to see is DeGale fighting the likes of George Groves or Lucian Bute types, then I don’t see this doing much. For it to be meaningful, DeGale would need to face talents familiar to the U.S boxing public like Andre Dirrell, Andre Ward or Bernard Hopkins. Somehow, I don’t see Hearn making any of those fights for DeGale.

Delighted to announce I've joined forces with Al Haymon. Great things ahead of me 👊👌

— James DeGale (@jamesdegale1) July 10, 2015

“Delighted that I’ve joined forces with Al Haymon, great things ahead of me. I am thrilled and delighted, exciting times ahead.” DeGale said on his Twitter.

Hearn is trying to find an opponent for DeGale’s next fight, and one that has been mentioned is 35-year-old Lucian Bute, who has lost 2 out of his last 3 fights and hasn’t fought in a year and a half since his one-sided loss to Jean Pascal in January 2014. It’s not exactly a great opponent if that’s who Hearn chooses to match DeGale up against.

DeGale recently won a very, very close 12 round unanimous decision against Andre Dirrell in April by the scores of 114-112, 114-112 and 117-109. The scores would have been much different had DeGale not scored two knockdowns in the 2nd round. Without the knockdowns, one of which appeared to be a push, Dirrell would have won the fight. Dirrell dominated most of the rounds of the fight, and looked like the better fighter after the 2nd round. However, understandably Hearn and DeGale have shown little interest in wanting to get back in the ring with Dirrell after the close call they had.

They’re looking for someone else, and want a guy with a name. Bernard Hopkins offered to take the fight, but there doesn’t appear be any interest from DeGale and Hearn to take the fight with him. I can’t say I blame them because Hopkins would have an excellent chance of beating DeGale by slowing the fight down and turning it into an inside war.

DeGale and Hearn are hoping that #1 WBC George Groves defeats WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack on August 22nd so that it sets up a potential unification fight between DeGale and Groves. However, it’s not looking good for Groves in that fight because Jack is all wrong for him. He’s a pressure fighter with excellent punching power, and Groves has already been shown to have a chin problem in his two knockout losses to Carl Froch, and in his fight against Kenny Anderson.