By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – James DeGale made it completely clear Wednesday that he is not in any way overlooking Badou Jack.

The confident British star realizes a loss to Sweden’s Jack (20-1-2, 12 KOs) in their super middleweight championship unification fight January 14 at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center disrupts anything else he’d like to accomplish in 2017. But if Gennady Golovkin’s representatives cannot secure preferred middleweight title fights against Daniel Jacobs and/or Canelo Alvarez, DeGale (23-1, 14 KOs) is more than willing to move down a few pounds to meet Golovkin between the middleweight and super middleweight limits.

DeGale also dismissed rumors of fellow Englishman Carl Froch coming out of retirement to battle Golovkin next year.

Tom Loeffler, Golovkin’s promoter, Tweeted a photo Thursday of he and fellow promoter Eddie Hearn from Monte Carlo and stated that they were negotiating a Golovkin-Froch fight at London’s Wembley Stadium. Froch wrote in a guest column posted on Sky Sports’ website earlier Wednesday that he is not considering coming back to fight Golovkin, whom Froch predicted he’d beat because Froch is “too big.”

“Froch ain’t coming back,” DeGale said before a press conference to officially announce his fight against Jack (Showtime). “That’s sh*t. He retired because he had to fight me. I was the mandatory challenger for the IBF [super middleweight] world title he gave up. So I had to fight [Andre] Dirrell [in May 2015], someone he should’ve really lost to [in October 2009]. Did you see that fight? It was close, but it was in his hometown, in Nottingham, and he lost because he didn’t really fight.”

The 39-year-old Froch (33-2, 24 KOs) hasn’t fought in nearly 2½ years, not since he knocked out England’s George Groves (24-3, 18 KOs) in the eighth round of their May 2014 rematch at a packed Wembley Stadium. Even if Froch eventually considers it, DeGale doesn’t think Froch would entertain a comeback for a difficult fight against Golovkin, particularly after such a long layoff.

“I don’t think so,” DeGale said. “He just got a nose job, for one, so he don’t wanna break his nose.”

The 30-year-old DeGale believes a bout between he and Golovkin, however, would do big business in England. Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) stopped IBF welterweight champ Kell Brook (36-1, 25 KOs) in the fifth round of their September 10 middleweight championship match at London’s O2 Arena.

“I wanna be in fights where people think I’m gonna lose,” said DeGale, who estimated he could go as low as 164 pounds for a fight against Golovkin. “I wanna fight Golovkin. We could do that. I’m telling you. I’ll come down in weight. He could come [up] in weight. But let’s just focus on Jack first, and not get too carried away.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.