By Keith Idec
James DeGale expects to return to London for his next fight, which he hopes will take place in June.
The IBF super middleweight champion revealed his plan to London’s Daily Mail for Monday’s editions. England’s DeGale mentioned four opponents he would like to fight, though the only one that appears to be a realistic option for his June return is countryman George Groves, the only man to defeat DeGale as a pro.
The 31-year-old DeGale also said he would like to fight Gennady Golovkin, Callum Smith and Andre Ward, but each of them have fights scheduled that would prevent them from fighting DeGale in June even if they were interested in facing him.
Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) probably is headed toward a June 10 fight against WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (24-0, 12 KOs) in Golovkin’s native Kazakhstan. England’s Smith (22-0, 17 KOs), ranked No. 1 by the WBC, is expected to face second-ranked Anthony Dirrell (30-1-1, 24 KOs), of Flint, Michigan, for the vacant WBC super middleweight title in his next bout, which hasn’t been scheduled. And Ward (31-0, 15 KOs), of Hayward, California, is contractually committed to a light heavyweight championship rematch with Russia’s Sergey Kovalev (30-1-1, 26 KOs), which probably will take place June 17 in Las Vegas.
That would leave Groves as the only opponent available from the group DeGale discussed with the Daily Mail. Groves (25-3, 18 KOs) beat DeGale (23-1-1, 14 KOs) by majority decision in their 12-round fight for the British super middleweight title in May 2011 in London.
DeGale, a 2008 Olympic gold medalist, rebuilt his career following that loss to Groves and eventually defeated American Andre Dirrell (25-2, 16 KOs) to win the IBF super middleweight championship in May 2015 in Boston. DeGale has long wanted to avenge his lone loss, though.
Last December, the WBA ordered Groves to fight Fedor Chudinov (14-1, 10KOs) for the vacant super middleweight title that was vacated by Felix Sturm. That fight appears to be in limbo. For whatever reasons, that title fight has yet to be scheduled and there is no word, at the moment, regarding a purse bid being scheduled.
"I'd like to fight George Groves again," DeGale said at a Boxing Writers' Club lunch convened to celebrate his success as the first British Olympic gold medallist to win a world boxing title.
"Of course I'd like to put that right because we grew up together in the same amateur club, but the cream always rises to the top and now people are seeing who is the genuine world-class fighter of the two of us. The Groves fight is always there, although my winning the world title, while he has failed three times to do that, kills him.
"But it is a big British fight in which I could wipe out the only defeat in my pro career."
The three losses to which DeGale referred were Groves’ back-to-back technical knockout losses to fellow Brit Carl Froch in 2013 and 2014, as well as his split-decision defeat to former WBC world super middleweight champ Badou Jack in September 2015. In DeGale’s last bout, he settled for a draw with Jack in a super middleweight championship unification fight January 14 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Sweden’s Jack (20-1-3, 12 KOs) since has given up his WBC 168-pound title and moved up to light heavyweight.
The 29-year-old Groves is 4-0 since Jack beat him on the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Andre Berto undercard in Las Vegas. The London native beat Kazakhstan’s Eduard Gutknecht (30-5-1, 13 KOs) by unanimous decision in his last fight, a 12-rounder November 18 in London.
Gutknecht underwent surgery to relieve swelling on his brain following that fight.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
