By Edward Chaykovsky

British super middleweight champion James DeGale has told up and coming prospect Chris Eubank Jr. that he's "crazy." Eubank has been taking shots at DeGale in articles and the social networks. DeGale says the entire rivalry is nothing more than the wild imagination of Eubank.

He told SunSport: “Over a year and a half ago, just after the Groves fight, Eubank sent me a message on Facebook. He said, ‘I’m not your enemy, I’m not your friend but I’m your rival. In a couple of years, you and me will fight – and it’s going to be massive’.

“It was some long-winded message and he told me to carry on being arrogant and brash because it would sell more tickets. But him and his dad are just crazy. If his dad told him to stand in a corner and pick his nose, he’d do it.”

DeGale comfirms to writer Gavin Glicksman that he had an incident with Eubank after a recent sparring session at his DeGolds Gym in Loughton, Essex. Now that DeGale has parted ways with promoter Frank Warren, he signed contract with Mick Hennessy, who also promotes Eubank.

“After the spar, in which I moved him around the ring and played with him, his dad told him to do his jump over the ropes while I was in MY ring doing pads. He’s done it, so I looked at him and said, ‘Get out my ring right now'.

“Now me, I’ve got a short fuse and something like that is going to make me switch. Luckily my dad was there and so was my trainer Jim McDonnell, so everything got cooled down, but I would have flipped. Trust me. We’re professionals and we should have respect for each other, but him and his dad are something else.”

“Let me make it clear, I moved HIM around. Next day, he’s gone on Twitter saying that he schooled an Olympic gold medallist — but it was all a publicity stunt on his part."