Transformed DeGale begins on path towards Ward title bout

James DeGale may have trained for 12 rounds in his European super-middleweight title defence, but 2/5 is a fair price that he is the first boxer to ever stop Hadillah Mohoumadi.

DeGale believes that he has finally got his mojo back after a year out in the boxing wilderness, where he has only had one fight, a fourth-round title defence over Italy’s Cristian Sanavia.

The former Olympic champion has since left the promotion company of Frank Warren and hooked up with Mick Hennessy instead, with the hope that a successful 12 months could be rewarded with a world title bout with Andre Ward.

This remains a distant dream, but DeGale has been taking his work seriously in the gym again and knows that his battle with Mohoumadi, who became French champion earlier this year, will be no walkover.

DeGale is a short 1/25 just to pick up the win, but he does face an opponent that has only lost two of his 16 professional fights, winning nine times inside the distance.

The problem for the 32-year-old is that both of his defeats have been on the only occasions that he has fought outside France, with one of these losses coming to Sanavia, who DeGale made relatively light work of.

In reality, he should be easy pickings for DeGale and provide more of a sparring session before hopefully stepping into the ring again before the end of 2012.

Punters looking for some better value may want to try their hand at round betting and knowing that ‘Chunky’ is not always the quickest at blasting out the opposition, there may be some value in the 3/1 that he triumphs between rounds four and six.

This happened in DeGale’s only previous outing with French opposition, stopping Alpay Kobal in the fifth round last year.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.