Pad’s up for Ryder crack
Chunky vacated IBF belt for better pay-day against Chris Jr but says he’s been promised another bid at glory before he retires
JAMES DeGALE gave up his world title to fight Chris Eubank Jr – but denied he is only in boxing for the money.
DeGale won back his prized belt in Las Vegas last year with victory in his rematch against Caleb Truax. He then decided to vacate rather than defend it against dangerous mandatory challenger Jose Uzcategui. But supermiddleweight DeGale, 32, insists he did so only on the promise that he would challenge for world honours again before he retires.
He said: “Everyone thinks this is my last fight and that I am just cashing out – it’s annoying me.
“I gave up my title (above, with the belt) because my adviser Al Haymon told me who
I was fighting and how much I was getting and it was annoying.
“Then, two days later, he came back and said, ‘I have someone better for you, I have Eubank’.
“It’s for much more money and I had to give up my title, but I said ‘yes’ and he has promised me another title shot before the end of my career. Boxing is in me, it’s all I’ve known. I left school in year nine and this is how I’ve made my money. I love it.
“I might have two more fights and knock it on the head – or I might have three – or I might have this one, win and go, ‘F*** it’.
“I’m financially nice. I’ve not got AJ millions, but I’m milled up.
“It’s a difficult one, knowing what to do after boxing, but I’m going to f*** Eubank up first and then I’m probably going to beat George Groves and call it a day – that would be perfect.
“Or beat Eubank then another shot at a world title – then knock it on the head.”
Eubank Jr has fallen short against, first, Billy Joe Saunders (above) and then last year against Groves. He has recruited a trainer for the first time in his 29-fight professional career in Nate Vasquez, who works alongside Floyd Mayweather.
But DeGale dismissed his opponent’s chances of derailing his retirement plans on February 23.
He said: “He’s deluded – he thinks he beat Groves and Saunders, and me in sparring. I’ve sparred him, I know what he is like and I’ve watched him lose. He is all talk.
“He is too arrogant and ignorant to change or listen to anyone but himself. Have you seen him in the corner with his dad and his trainer Ronnie Davies? It’s pathetic, bizarre – and a new coach will make no difference.” IRISHMAN Padraig Harrington’s arm will be in a splint when he is named as the 2020 European Ryder Cup captain on Tuesday.
He broke a bone in the wrist on stairs at his Dublin home.
“A few weeks off is now needed,” he said.