Set fot September. That's the former world super-middleweight champion against a 45 year old not fought for fifteen years light-middle. https://www.boxing247.com/boxing-news/james-degale-returns-at-40-for-september-comeback-fight/308317
This is bleak. At least it’s a safer route than BKFC, I suppose. But if the stuff about his company going pop with big liabilities to HMRC is right, then this doesn’t exactly scream someone who’s just bored in retirement. Hopefully he hasn’t got personal guarantees tied up in any of it, but either way, it’s total delusion if he thinks this comeback goes anywhere unless he can somehow entice Groves back into the ring.
This would have been a tune up back in 2010. Sad to hear. But then again. I liked Portman, solid standup southpaw. Just a shame that it’s bare knuckle and not a decade and a half ago. It’s kinda funny how the most successful in bk is not the raw swarmers but the old techy southpaws like trout.
Its boxing mate not a BKFC fight. Agree on Trout he's made for BKFC, accurate hands with good technique.
Amazed he didn't just get a Misfits fight and earned a bigger payday. Age old thing of boxers made life changing money and bad investments, advice or ripped off takes them back to where they started financially or worse and they lace them up again.
James was shot to bits in 2017 when he lost to Truax, a game but average fighter that he would have eaten alive in his prime. No harm in this one as its lower level against a very weak opponent, but he needs to guard against stepping up and potentially getting hurt.
He didn’t make bad investments, he just tried to bank roll and look after all his family while having retired and then not being employed. He moved them all to a nice area and did what he thought was probably the right thing to do. It is shame to see him boxing again.
His money was mismanaged by the family he trusted to handle it, because no way should he have ended up with huge outstanding tax liabilities if things were being run properly. Not saying his money wouldn't have been mismanaged elsewhere either. Look at Fernando Vargas, his manager stole the lot, and there are countless stories like that in boxing. He put a lot into that gym as well, the one he opened a couple of years ago, but in his mind around 2017-18 he probably thought he was set, and that his family were set too, which was a genuinely good thing. They leaned into that a lot in the Eubank build-up. Problem is, like you said, maintaining all that post-retirement, plus the IG lifestyle he likes to display, still needs cash flow, and he clearly hasn't got it. Edit : At least not in a liquid form, hopefully he is still asset rich.
100 % His kid Emiliano looks the real deal too, more so than the other two playboys he’s got. I still think Fernando would have beat Trinidad if Tito hadn’t drilled him in the family jewels, especially after Vargas was coming on from that hellish start.