London (May 16) Jim McDonnell believes WBC Silver super-middleweight champion James DeGale MBE’s North American debut tomorrow night can start “building that momentum towards winning a world title.”
The former 2008 Olympic gold medalist, fondly known as ‘Chunky,’ takes on Sebastien Demers at Casino Lac-Leamy, Gatineau, May 17th.
“He’s been training for a long time, it’s been a very long camp – obviously through no ones fault the last one got called off but he’d ticked all the boxes – he’d sparred 241 rounds,” Jim said.
“Now, with the fight in Canada in place, he hasn’t got to, essentially, do too much because he’s already there – if anything we’re just guarding against over-cooking him really.
“It’s just a case of holding him over and once he gets in the ring in Canada I think he’s going to put on a really good performance and this could be the start of him building that momentum towards winning a world title.”
This will be DeGale’s first fight since dominating former IBO super-middleweight champion Fulgencio Zuniga in Hull back in December, after his clash with Alexander Brand, set for March, was postponed.
Now, DeGale will come face to face with Canadian fighter Demers, who fought Arthur Abraham for the IBF middleweight title in 2007 and boasts an impressive 31 wins from 36 fights.
But, ‘Team Chunky’ are eager to impress the Canadian fans and know a good performance could propel James towards that world title.
