By Ryan Burton
On January 14th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack (20-1-2) and IBF champ James DeGale (23-1) will collide in an unification tilt. The fight will headline a Showtime Championship Boxing card that will kick off their 2017 schedule.
The highly anticipated fight had been negotiated for several months before it was finalized. With so much on the online, Jack believes the winner will clearly be the best in the division.
"You got (WBO champion) Gilberto Ramirez too but he only beat one guy. We beat three top guys so the winner of the fight will be the best 68 pounder," Jack explained.
The 33-year-old had previously stated his desire to move up in weight and face one of the top figures at 175 pounds like Andre Ward or Sergey Kovalev. While he is still interested, all of his attention is currently on DeGale.
"I feel really good. My weight is pretty good. I am ready. I'm focused on DeGale. Ask me after the fight," Jack told BoxingScene.com.
The two boxers co-headlined an April card in Washington, DC. Jack and Lucian Bute fought to a controversial twelve round draw in the main event. After the fight, Bute failed a drug test but the outcome was never changed to a no-contest. In the co-feature, DeGale had to dig deep to win a very tough twelve round unanimous decision over Rogelio Medina (who Jack knocked out in 2013).
Also on the Jack-DeGale card, José Pedraza will defend his IBF super featherweight title against Gervonta "Tank" Davis to open up the doubleheader.
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