Boxing clever makes sense

IMAGINE walking in on your first day at a new job, nervous yet eager to please, only for your efforts to be loudly ridiculed by those around you — many of whom sound and smell like they have spent the afternoon pouring premium strength beer down their throats.

Not a very nice prospect, I’m sure you will agree. But enough of my initiation here at the Chronicle — what of poor old James DeGale?

The Olympic gold medallist made a low-key professional boxing debut at the weekend, defeating Vepkhia Tchilaia on points in a super-middlewight contest in Birmingham. But even though the ambitious 23-year-old came through unscathed, it wasn’t enough to prevent him being on the end of a barrage of boos from the crowd.

Sadly, in this age of the brutal and unfathomably popular Ultimate Fighting Championship, anything less than all-out tear-up isn’t enough to satisfy the modern crowd’s blood lust.

“There are some idiots out there,” DeGale said afterwards. Not half.

He has been a professional boxer for eight weeks, so it has come to something when DeGale is savaged not after losing, but after winning in a style not to the audience’s tastes.

When the hangovers kick in, hopefully those in the crowd who abused the Londoner will come to realise that he did the right thing not getting involved in a tit-for-tat fight.

Why risk anything at this embryonic stage of what should be a long and fruitful pro career? Better to simply box for four rounds, to take things slowly and treat every move rationally and on its merits, than trade blows.

If the experiences of Amir Khan has taught Olympic amateurs anything, it is that you can’t simply charge in on the full, fight after fight, without getting smashed to the canvas on the way.

Perhaps DeGale is, unfairly, already paying the price for the legacy of poor old Audley Harrison.

After losing to Michael Sprott in his only fight of 2007, many thought it was a case of ‘taxi for Audley’ — until he was beaten by Belfast cab driver Martin Rogan in December.

There is something admirable in Harrison’s stubborn determination to carry on boxing, despite the fact that he has consistently shown he is nowhere near ruthless enough to succeed.

But it is probably too late for him to garner any public sympathy at this stage of his career. Not after a preposterous £1million BBC contract handed to him immediately after the Sydney Olympics raised hopes to a level above his ability, and the repeated failures that followed on from there.

There is a lesson in Harrison’s experiences, not only for DeGale but also those who follow him. Slowly, slowly, catchy title belt.

mattchambers@oldham-chronicle.co.uk