By Scott Gilfoid: IBF super middleweight champion James DeGale (21-1, 14 KOs) is pulling for #1 WBC George Groves (21-2, 16 KOs) to defeat WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack (19-1-1, 12 KOs) this Saturday night in their fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. DeGale thinks that if Groves wins the fight then he’ll be able to fight Groves at Wembley Stadium in London, UK next summer so that he can try and avenge his previous loss to him from four years ago in 2011.

Groves beat DeGale by a 12 round majority decision in that fight. But since then, DeGale appears to have improved, whereas Groves seems to have aged suddenly since losing back to back fights to Carl Froch. Groves has not looked good since the losses to Froch, even though he’s won his last two fights to Christopher Rebrasse and Denis Douglin.

DeGale thinks that Groves is going to beat Badou Jack anyway, because he sees him as a better all-around fighter.

“I want him to win,” DeGale told skysports.com. “Of course I don’t like him and never will, but I want him to get a world title and set up that rematch, next summer, at Wembley Stadium. I do think he wins it. I even think that he might well stop him, I really do.”

It’s always nice to make predictions based on hope, but I don’t think that DeGale is seeing things from a proper perspective when he looks at the Badou vs. Groves fight. I see DeGale as coming from a place of need in badly wanting Groves to beat Badou rather than seeing the fight in a logical manner.

If you see it from an analytical view the way I do, there’s no way that you can pick Groves to win the fight, because his chin is too soft, as we saw in his losses to Froch, and his stamina is horrible.

Groves will look good for a few rounds, then get tired and wear down like an old clock from the heavy pressure that Badou is going to be putting on him all night long. Once Groves wears down, Badou will punch his lights out and the referee will need to either stop the fight with Groves on his feet or help scoop him up after Groves is knocked flat from one of Badou’s big power shots.

“I’ve actually been listening to a few of Ugly Kid’s (Groves) interviews and they are extremely confident he is going to take Jack out and – even I hate to say it – he is a better fighter than Badou Jack and has got the tools to beat him,” DeGale said.

Well, I’ve seen plenty of Groves’ recent interviews, and they’re exact same type of self-promoting type interviews that he did before his two fights with Carl Froch. Groves lost both of those fights by knockouts. Groves’ self-confidence didn’t help him a bit.

I’m surprised that DeGale falls for that self-confidence bit from Groves. He should know by now that Groves feels that he’ll win every fight, but he obviously can’t. Even before his two losses to Froch, Groves was a limited fighter. But since those two defeats, they seem to have taken something out of Groves, because he seems to get hurt easier now, and he looks like he’s aged physically. Groves looks like he’s five years older to me since his second loss to Froch.

Instead of DeGale wishing and hoping that Groves beats Badou so that he can fight him, DeGale needs to get inside the ring and start fighting again. He’s been sitting on his backside ever since he beat Andre Dirrell by a very narrow score last April, and he’s wasting his career sitting and doing nothing.