'Not made like me' - why former world champion is preparing for a Wolverhampton return

The first question to ask James DeGale is what on earth he is doing in Wolverhampton?

It is rapidly approaching 7pm on a Friday evening and the former Olympic and world boxing champion is sat upstairs at the city’s Rose Garden Banqueting Hall, explaining why nearly seven-and-a-half years after calling time on a history-making career in which he ticked off nearly every goal possible, he has decided to once more lace up the gloves.

This Saturday DeGale, now 40, will step through the ropes at the Civic Hall to face West Bromwich’s Marcus Portman, five years his senior.

None of this, at least at first glance, makes any sense.

“People say I smashed it. But they are not made like me,” says DeGale. “People say don’t come back. But they are not made like me.

“I want to prove the doubters wrong. The way I finished my career was terrible. It haunts me every day.

“How can you be that good and get that bad? I just need one fight and that is it.”

That’s all fine and good but it doesn’t explain why that fight is against Portman, the former English welterweight champion, who hasn’t fought professionally in 15 years.

Neither does it answer who precisely these doubters are? DeGale’s place in the record books, as the first British boxer to win both Olympic gold and a world professional title, is assured.

A two-time IBF super middleweight champion, his career reached heights the like of which most fighters can only dream. Since retirement, he has tended to shun the spotlight. It is not as though a stream of up-and-coming boxers have been calling him out, or playing down his achievements.

But then to understand DeGale’s comeback, you need to look around you.

In the two hours before he makes his entrance, flanked by two security guards, the Rose Garden has played host to a press conference involving the 26 fighters on the mammoth undercard.

A couple of those, Frankie Gavin and Steve Saville, are familiar faces. They will meet in the chief support bout, in a rematch of their contest from 2009 which former world amateur champion Gavin won inside two rounds. Saville is now 50.

Nearly everyone else on the bill will be unknown to boxing fans because they are not actually boxers, at least not in the professional sense. Instead, they are people with large social media followings, who draw popularity through personality, rather than prowess in the ring.

So while it is DeGale’s name at the top of the poster grabbing attention, the real story here is the show itself, an attempt by Wolverhampton-born promoter Andy Sahota to bring the crossover boxing phenomenon, made famous in recent years by the likes of Jake Paul and Misfits Promotions, to his hometown.

Sahota’s version is titled Reign and it is he who convinced DeGale, whom he first met in 2016, to front the launch night.

“He told me if I ever needed him, to give him a shout,” he explains. “Earlier this year I got in touch with him and told him what I was planning.

“We had a meeting. I told him my vision. That was it really.”

There’s no doubting Sahota’s ambition, or enthusiasm.

There’s also no question his show is far from everyone’s cup of tea. Crossover boxing is not without controversy. Many of those involved in professional boxing do not like it. No bouts on this show will be licensed by the British Boxing Board of Control.

But then it is all about bringing in the crowd. Sahota, whose ShowFighter promotions have previously hosted events involving Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury, is the first local promoter to stage boxing at the Civic since it reopened.

That means for all the misgivings, there will be plenty watching his show with interest, to see if he can pull it off.

“It is what the audience want. We are not trying to step on anyone’s toes,” he says.

“I believe this is the best of both worlds.

“I have had people messaging me from all over the world. It is massive, what we are putting on here. It is only going to grow.”

You figure DeGale is hoping the same. Though he remains coy on what happens next, in previous interviews he has expressed hope of forging his own path in the crossover world.

Saturday is a springboard, provided all goes to plan against Portman.

What’s clear is that for all his accomplishments, DeGale remains unsatisfied. Last year he made an underwhelming debut in the world of bare knuckle fighting.

During the press conference and then later, when talking to the Express & Star, he explains how undiagnosed chronic inflammation impacted the final years of his career and was a factor in defeats to Caleb Truax and Chris Eubank Junior, the latter in the final bout before he

“The only way to put it is you feel old and depressed every single day, 24 hours a day,” he says.

“In the end it eats away at your muscle and takes your organs. It is not like you get injured and it goes. It lingers and is there for months, for years. It is horrible.”

This is no sob story. DeGale is happy to admit he did not help himself.

“I was so good and then it just went downhill real, real fast,” he continues. “It was purely managing my injuries. I was so stupid, impatient.

“I was getting so much money and wanted to fight. I was an idiot. I just didn’t manage my injuries, didn’t really listen to my team. That is what happens.”

Soon to be a father-of-two, DeGale claims to have been living the quiet life since stepping away from the sport. He says he is in a good place.

That prompts another, more difficult question around the comeback. Boxing is not a sport to dip in and out of. Why take the risk?

“You can’t explain a fighter’s mentality and what they feel,” he says. “I have done this since the age of 10.

“That is 30 years of my life. I have never had a job before, never done nothing but boxing.

“It was my life. It isn’t my life now because I have a family and am in a different headspace. I have a different perspective.

“But when you are a fighter, there is always something inside you.”

Tickets for Reign: DeGale vs Portman, are available at AXS.com