there seems to be a lot of buzz around degale atm following his dominant display against smith. mostly from uk fans but also from a few others around the world who are just impressed by his skill. but my question is why didnt people reconise this earlier. ive been saying since day one he's a future world champ. you could see he has exceptional speed and skill in every fight. will the people who were saying george groves is the better fighter come out the wood work and admit they were wrong? heres an article i wrote about degale about 6 fights in. i got his commonwealth belt wrong. thats groves!!!! http://www.boxingnews24.com/2010/07/james-degale-the-man-has-talent/
Degale is being hyped up now, as he rightly deserves. But, I like Brook ahead of him in the skills department.
A typical quote from a post left by degale haters. where are they now? 12th Round says: July 3, 2010 at 2:07 pm "As i said in a previous post: Degale is an absolute knob, he thinks he’s proper big time, I mean he had a crappy reggae singer coming down to the ring with him once chanting a song about him, it was awful, who does he think he is, it just made him look a total toss pot. Groves would kill him if they ever met. I’d love to see someone wipe the smug look off his ugly face to bring him down a peg or to. Instead of giving it the big I am and the trash talking he should knuckle down and come down a peg or to to where he belongs. The way he acts you’d think he was headlining at the MGM or something. He’s a KO waiting to happen, I’ve seen him take loads of heavy shots against nobody’s and he’s only had 7 fights and fought jokers, when he steps up against someone who can bang he’ll get KO’d."
degale has a lot more skill. i like brook but he's more of a power punching come forward fighter. degale has so much variety and flashy combination punching.
A lot of people rated him, they just hate his cocky guts. He deserves the praise he's getting though. Quite clearly one of the top 10 prospects in the world, and he's looking like a future force in the SMW division. Two years until he fights (and beats) Froch, in my estimation.
trust me alot of people didnt rate him aswell. all you have to do is read the comments left on an early degale article. or better yet look at a few of the comments on my article. people were picking his style apart and claiming he gets hit to often and slaps with no power. i bet alot of his current fans were haters before the smith fight. just goes to show how fickle and uneducated some boxing fans are. and you say he's "cocky"!!!!!.......i'll say it again and again.... fighters are upposed to be cocky! the sport is all about confidence and even arugance. what about carl froch, joe calzaghe, floyed mayweather, joy jones jnr? oh and muhammed ali. they were all cocky but i dont hear you shooting them down. and dont say they have produced the goods so have right to be cocky because they were cocky at the same early stage of there career!
Loads of potential but yeah, he's got a habit of coming across badly whenever he opens his mouth. Brash characters are always gonna take flak, even if they back it up which, to be fair (gold medal at the Olympics and an impessive start to his pro career), he's pretty much been doing. I wasn't really sold on Degale until his last few fights but I'm convinced of his ability now. He's a bit of a ***** I suppose but people shouldn't let that sway their opinion of him as a fighter cos he's clearly very talented.
he's no more of a ***** than calzaghe, hatton, eubank, naz, haye, and benn. ive seen him in interviews outside the ring and he comes across good. selfafacing and down to earth. if theres anything ali tought us its theres nothing wrong with talking big especially in a cut throat business like boxing.
Seen bits and bobs where he seems alright but I wouldn't exactly call him a safe guy or anything. On the whole he comes across as cocky, and that's the general consensus amongst boxing fans in the UK. He's backed it up so far so he gets a pass on it, just like all those guys you mentioned got away with it, but it's not exactly a surprise to see him getting a bit of hate... all those guys had people giving them abuse and writing off their ability too and they were established, world class fighters. When you rub people up the wrong way as a 9 fight novice you've gotta expect some negativity. Still, if it gets people interested and wanting to tune into his fights, whether they like him or not, I doubt he gives a ****.
