retired from boxing in 2019<\/a> after a unanimous decision defeat by Chris Eubank Jr. <\/p>\nHe will return to combat sports against Australian Matt Floyd on the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship card at the AO Arena.<\/p>\n
“UK I’m back. This time the gloves are off,” the Londoner wrote on Instagram.<\/p>\n
“Everyone asking what version you’re getting… seven years out, body healed, mind sharp – it’s the best one yet. Demolition job pending.”<\/p>\n
DeGale became the first British boxer to win both an Olympic gold medal and a professional world title.<\/p>\n
He won middleweight gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and claimed the IBF super-middleweight title in May 2015 with a points win over American Andre Dirrell.<\/p>\n
Nicknamed ‘Chunky’, he lost the belt in December 2017 to Caleb Truax but regained it in a rematch in April 2018 before vacating it later that year.<\/p>\n
After being outpointed by fellow Briton Eubank Jr in what was his third career loss, DeGale said he was “not the fighter I once was” and announced his retirement shortly after.<\/p>\n
Floyd, 36, has a professional boxing record of 15 wins and two losses. The Perth-born fighter and former gang member, who served time in prison, was reportedly in talks to face Briton Tommy Fury earlier this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former world champion James DeGale will make his bare-knuckle fighting debut on 27 September in Manchester. DeGale, 39,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-85223","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}