By Keith Idec
NEW YORK – Badou Jack likes the fact that the pressure is on James DeGale, who has been installed as a 3-1 favorite over him.
DeGale’s supposed superiority has motivated Jack while preparing for their super middleweight championship unification fight January 14 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
London’s DeGale has won 13 straight fights since British rival George Groves beat him by majority decision 5½ years ago at O2 Arena in London. Sweden’s Jack (20-1-2, 12 KOs) drew with former IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute in his last bout, but Jack seemingly did more than enough to win that 12-rounder April 30 in Washington, D.C.
Jack will try to defend his WBC 168-pound championship and win DeGale’s IBF super middleweight title in a “Showtime Championship Boxing” main event two weeks from Saturday night.
“I like being the underdog,” Jack said. “And if I’m the underdog in this fight, that’s perfect for me. Then there’s not gonna be no excuses when I beat him, like my last couple of fights. There’s not gonna be no excuses. If I’m the underdog, how can there be any excuses? Everybody thought I was gonna lose, right?”
When asked if he suspects most fight fans feel he’ll lose to DeGale, Jack responded, “I don’t know what people think. It’s not gonna matter fight night.”
The 33-year-old Jack acknowledged, though, that he understands why DeGale (23-1, 14 KOs) might be viewed as the favorite entering their scheduled 12-round bout.
“He is one of the top guys,” Jack said. “He’s an Olympic gold medalist [in 2008]. He’s a world champion. He’s a road warrior. He’s coming to the States, fighting people in their backyard. So yeah, he deserves a lot of credit. That’s why this fight is so big. It’s the best fighting the best. He wants to be great. I wanna be great.”
DeGale defeated Mexico’s Rogelio Medina (37-7, 31 KOs) by unanimous decision in a 12-rounder as part of the same card that included the dubious draw between Bute (32-3-1, 25 KOs) and Jack. Five months earlier, DeGale beat Bute by unanimous decision in a 12-round fight in Quebec City, Canada (117-111, 117-111, 116-112).
“I landed 60 percent of my power punches,” Jack said regarding his majority draw with Bute. “I clearly won that fight. And it’s hard to compare. Styles make fights. [DeGale is] a southpaw. I’m more of a pressure fighter. It’s different. But [Bute] was on steroids, so who knows? I hear they did VADA testing for [the DeGale-Bute] fight, so he wasn’t on steroids when [DeGale] fought him. I don’t know. But I clearly won that fight, I think.
“Bute told me after the fight that I was a tougher fight than [DeGale]. But who knows? That’s all in the past. Now it’s me and DeGale, so it don’t matter. He stopped [Marco Antonio] Periban, and I had a controversial draw with him. I knocked out Porky Medina. He had a very, very close fight with him. So that don’t matter. We’ve gotta fight.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
