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Truax To Form

Written by Glenn McCrory on 10th April 2018.

Winning ugly!

He may have had to but in Las Vegas on Saturday evening James DeGale recaptured his IBF World super middleweight championship that he lost in December to the unfancied Minnesota fighter Caleb Truax.

It was another below best performance from the former Olympic gold medalist, who was badly cut above the right eye from as early as the third round from a nasty clash of heads but kept to his game plan to outpoint Truax on all the judges scorecards.

The fighters styles never gelled and the bout was marred by lots of holding and mauling from both parties. They suffered facial damage from constant head clashes, of which in fairness DeGale was mostly to blame as he often came into the clinches with his head held very low.

He was however in a much better mind set for this fight than in December when he appeared to take Truax very lightly and paid the penalty with a negative display. This time he was up for the fight and met Truax head on in centre ring when needed.

DeGale’s much better variety and skill level was apparent however, and he scored well on the inside landing to the body with good hooks and uppercuts, and at long range he showed nice foot movement and quality counterpunches.

Truax did what he could to make it a physical fight and pushed forward trying to land with lunging punches but time and again he missed wildly and was forced to hold on whenever they came together, which then resulted in a point deduction for DeGale in the 10th round as he used his shoulder on numerous occasions in an attempt two force his man apart.

In the final two rounds, DeGale boxed and moved in confident style picking up the action as they neared the final bell and looked levels above in a scrappy and very forgettable encounter.

The unanimous win does, however, make James DeGale a very impressive sounding former Olympic champion and a two-time world champion which sets up lucrative matchups with the winner of George Groves and Callum Smith or an intriguing possibility of a clash with Chris Eubank Jr.

But for me, the real question he and his team have to consider is how did he ever lose to Caleb Truax in the first place?