By Allan Fox: The unification fight between James DeGale and Badou Jack is now official for January 14 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. This is a neutral venue for the two fighters, as DeGale from the UK and Badou is originally from Sweden, but now lives in Las Vegas, Nevada.
DeGale will be defending his IBF super middleweight title, and Badou Jack his WBC belt. DeGale (23-1, 14 KOs) will be a long ways away from home the UK. The DeGale vs. Badou fight will be televised on Showtime Championship Boxing on Saturday, January 14.
The DeGale vs. Badou fight might not attract a lot of interest from fans in the States, because neither of these guys are big names.
Jack is from Sweden, and still hasn’t beaten enough of the top names to create a large fan base. DeGale is from the UK, so his fans are mostly over in that country. Those guys need to take some risks with their careers by facing someone like Golovkin or moving up to a catch-weight to fight the likes of Adonis Stevenson, Sergey Kovalev or Artur Beterbiev.
There will be a press conference on Wednesday to help promote the fight, which is now only two months away. Both fighters have been out of the ring since last April, when they both fought on the same card on April 30th at the DC Armory in Washington. DeGale defended his title successfully against his mandatory challenge Rogelio Medina in beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision.
Badou had a tougher time in his fight in fighting to a disputed 12 round draw against Lucian Bute. Badou felt that he’d done enough to deserve the win, but the judges felt otherwise. It was a tough fight for Badou, because he was definitely outworked in the second half of the contest by Bute. Badou felt that he landed the harder shots, but there’s no denying that Bute hit him with a lot of hard punches that made the fight tough to score. Bute is not a light puncher.
Promoter Floyd Mayweather Jr. will be in attendance this Wednesday at the press conference to announce the Jack vs. DeGale fight at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY. Mayweather promotes Badou Jack.
DeGale said this about Mayweather to skysports.com:
“He’s got very good backing from Floyd Mayweather and we all know Mayweather and we know he is still huge, but he’s not getting in the ring with me on fight night, is he?” DeGale said. “It should be a good fight. Now it’s finally being confirmed, I am on it. I’m in business.
The winner of the DeGale vs. Jack fight could be in the running for a potential fight against middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in 2017. Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler mentioned this week that a fight against the winner of the DeGale-Badou Jack fight could be a possibility. Golovkin is interested in a big fight, and he’s open to fighting different guys in order to stay busy.
Golovkin wants to fight Saul Canelo Alvarez in September 2017 if possible, but it’s still debatable whether that fight will happen or not. If not, then Golovkin is going to need to fight somebody of interest. DeGale, Badou Jack, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez are all possibilities for him.
“Badou Jack is an underrated fighter. He’s a bit like me; he doesn’t really get enough credit,” said DeGale. “Since he won the world title, I think he’s an improved fighter and got better. If I am not on my game, or not on the ball, I could easily lose to Jack.”
DeGale could very well lose to Badou even if he’s at his very best. DeGale is not one of those fighters that is heads and shoulders above the guys he’s been facing. DeGale is just a little bit better than the guys he’s been fighting recently in Medina and Bute. Badou might be a better fighter than DeGale. We’re e going to have to find out when the two of them get inside the ring on January 14.
Badou is the better body puncher of the two, and the better pressure fighter. That’s the wrong kind of style for DeGale, who struggled in his fight against George Groves five years ago with the pressure that was put on him. DeGale hasn’t faced a puncher since then. Badou is young enough and strong enough to give DeGale a lot of problems in this fight if he can stay on him, and force him to fight hard for three minutes of every round.
If DeGale does beat Badou, he’s then going to need to fight #1 WBC Callum Smith shortly after that. DeGale will need all the mobility he can get to win that fight, because Calluim is the much bigger puncher of the two, and he might be able to chop him down if he stands directly in front of him. That would be unfortunate news for DeGale to get beaten by Smith in his next fight after he gets by Jack.
I’m sure that DeGale is hoping that a victory over Badou will lead to bigger and better things for his boxing career. A fight against Callum Smith would be a bigger fight, but if DeGale loses to him, then it wouldn’t be good for his career. If Smith takes both the IBF and WBC titles, then DeGale would be forced to go after WBO champion Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez or possibly the WBA belt.