James DeGale has refused to rule out the possibility of an early retirement after his shock defeat against Caleb Truax, with the former world champion set to re-consider his future in the coming weeks.
DeGale, 31, lost his IBF super-middleweight world title to the American outsider Saturday after he found himself on the wrong side of a majority decision at London's Copper Box Arena.
Despite Frank Warren's expectation that DeGale will bounce back from the disappointing result, the Londoner refused to match the promoter's confidence.
"To say I'm devastated is an understatement," said DeGale Sunday, after spending the night at a hospital to receive treatment on a broken nose he sustained during the fight.
"It's still quite soon after the fight so I'm not going to make any immediate decisions and I'll take some time out over the Christmas and New Year to reflect."
DeGale, who entered the bout ranked No. 1 in the super-middleweight division, returned to the ring for the first time since January after taking time out to recover from a shoulder problem.
While the former Olympic champion admitted to being out of sorts as he was overpowered by Truax, he struggled to find an explanation for his second defeat since making his professional debut in 2009.
"I don't want to be in any other position than No. 1 so I am going to take some time out to make some decisions going forward," he added.
"I will have to go back to the drawing board and analyse what went wrong because in all honesty I should not have lost to Caleb Truax.
"I know that I'm leagues above him, but for whatever reason I just didn't perform in there on the night and I'm at a loss to explain why."