Sunday 22 May 2011

George Groves - James Degale

Well done St George! Most experts and fans all seemed to be in agreement that Degale would simply be too sublime for the Commonwealth champion. How wrong were we! I expected Groves to work the body, get inside and pressure Degale but the opposite was the case. Groves used the ring well, had (mostly) better footwork and kept his opponent off the boil by superb lateral movement.

Equal credit has to go to Adam Booth, who is fastly ensuring his reputation as one of the best boxing brains in the world. He took a heart on sleeve fighter and managed to grow his potential to include skills we would have never thought we would see from Groves. Well done Adam.

Degale has a long road back from here, of course he is going to recover and is still a massive talent and draw but the manner of his defeat will change his boxing outlook. According to Twitter and boxing blogs even the most die hard 'Chunky' fan only had him nicking it. Hardly the 4-round blow out we were promised! Degale appeared to not have a plan B and totally forgot about working off his jab. A large part of this must fall on Jim McDonnell – why would a trainer of this calibre send his charge out without a plan? As we know Jim McDonnell is a quality trainer it must have been down to arrogance – thinking Degale would just walk through Groves?

If I was incharge of Degale I would move him from the UK to start again, like Khan did. In the UK 'Chunky' is a celebrity, he may have been a victim of believing his own hype. A move would change this, he could start again as a novice with little distraction. If he can get back in the ring relatively quickly and with good sparring inbetween he will challenge for honours again soon, hopefully without all the nasty build up that in my opinion soured his reputation. I predict that we will see a rematch but I hope it is not for a few years, hopefully when both are international names.

Well done both, it was a great fight and well worth the £15.

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