Andre Dirrell looking to be back in the ring in April or sooner

By Boxing News - 01/11/2012 - Comments

Image: Andre Dirrell looking to be back in the ring in April or soonerBy Scott Gilfoid: Super middleweight Andre Dirrell (20-1, 14 KOs) says he’s looking to get back in the ring in the next three months to get in his next fight to keep climbing the rankings.

Dirrell, 28, wants a shot at IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute in 2012 and is hoping that he can get a fight with him at the tail end of the year as long as he’s not still tied up with former WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch.

Dirrell said this on his twitter page: “I’m looking at a 3 month time frame, possibly a little sooner. Opponent not yet decided.”

Dirrell has boxing fans still talking about his impressive 2nd round TKO win over Darryl Cunningham last month on December 30th. Dirrell put Cunningham down twice in the fight and showed incredible hand speed and power in his first fight in 21 months.

Dirrell didn’t look anything like a fighter that had been out of the ring for that long. It’s fair to say that Dirrell coming off of a 21 month layoff looked a lot better than Froch did in his loss to WBA super middleweight champion in the finals of the Super Six tournament last December.

Dirrell still has his cat-like reflexes, incredible defensive skills and pinpoint accuracy. The one new wrinkle that Dirrell showed was in the power department. Dirrell revealed a new area to his game with the monstrous power that he showed in the Cunningham fight. Maybe Dirrell wanted to show that he’s not the only one in the Dirrell family that can punch with devastating power. His brother Anthony has one-punch knockout power and has been knocking everyone out early in his fights. Andre showed that he can punch just like his brother and that’s going to really help his game in a big way because he won’t have to focus as much on his defense like he did in the Super Six tournament in fights against Arthur Abraham and Froch.

Andre Ward wants to see Bute face Dirrell before he’ll consider facing the Canadian-based champion. I sure hope that can happen because Dirrell deserves a title shot and this would be the quickest way for him to get one rather than having to slowly work his way back into title contention.



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