Super middleweight contender James DeGale (14-1, 9 KO’s) will be playing it safe this Friday night, May 17th in facing Canadian Sebastien Demers (31-5, 11 KO’s) in an 8 round bout at the Hilton Lac Learny, Gatineau, Quebec, Canada.
With DeGale close to getting a title shot against one of the world champions, his promoter is matching him against pretty much weak opposition so that he doesn’t get beat again like he was against George Groves. In selecting Demers, it appears they’ve found a beatable guy that shouldn’t derail DeGale from his title hopes. Demers hasn’t won a fight in three years.
I repeat that. Demears has not won a fight in three years, and he’s lost his last three fights. That kind of tells you where DeGale and his promoter is at right now. They’re playing extra careful that DeGale doesn’t get beaten again because if that happens then it could throw him off for a long, long time.
As it is, DeGale seems to have been in the slow lane since turning pro in 2008 after capturing a gold medal in the 2008 Olympics. DeGale stepped it up once against a decent opponent in George Groves in 2011 and he got beat. Since then, DeGale has won his last four fights, beating Fulgencio Zuniga, Hadillah Mohoumadi, Cristian Sanavia, and Piotr Wilczewski. However, his wins over Mohoumadi and Wilczewski are very questionable ones, as both fights looked like draws instead of wins by DeGale.
Ignoring the questionable scoring, you can’t ignore the fact that DeGale was battled to a standstill in both of those fights, and that’s not a good sign when predicting his future chances of success. But perhaps that’s why he’s facing Demers instead of a contender or a decent 2nd tier fighter.
DeGale should win this fight without any problems. If he loses or struggles to win then you have to figure his situation is worse than I originally thought.