By Edward Chaykovsky
Olympic gold medal winner James DeGale (20-1, 14KOs) is expecting a very tough contest when he faces Andre Dirrell (24-1, 16KOs) for the vacant IBF super middleweight world title on May 23rd in Boston. The belt was vacated earlier this year by Carl Froch.
He told Sky Sports: “Once you’ve won the title it’s about building and unifying, and being in those great, exciting fights. That’s what I plan to do, but first I need to get past Dirrell which is a hard, hard task in itself. I’m confident in doing that and after, it will get bigger and bigger.
If DeGale wins, he would like to avenge his sole career defeat to George Groves, who won a twelve round majority decision in their 2011 showdown at the O2 Arena. Groves is the mandatory challenger to younger brother Anthony Dirrell, who holds the WBC's version of the super middleweight crown.
If both of them win their world title fights, DeGale says a unification rematch would be massive for the UK scene.
“Groves is a possibility but he’s got his own path, he’ll be boxing for the WBC title at the end of the year. So that’s a massive fight – imagine unifying titles with two English fighters,” DeGale said.
“After that defeat [to Groves], for a year, it did bother me that I’ve got a loss on my record to him. But you move on – I’ve had 10 fights since then, won the European title, boxed top 10 contenders, and now I’m boxing for the world title. I’ve come on a whole heap, and achieved a whole heap so he’s not constantly on my mind", but it’s a big fight for British boxing.
“I was on a different channel and boxing at shopping centres and he gave me a lot of stick. It’s weird how things change. Now I’m on Sky, boxing for a world title, topping my own bill in America and making good money. The roles have reversed. Last time, I was the villain but people are starting to find out about George Groves.”