By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten super middleweight Anthony Dirrell (25-0, 21 KO’s) will be showing his stuff on later this month against the capable Anthony Hanshaw (23-3-2, 14 KO’s) in a scheduled 10 round bout at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas.
The Dirrell-Hanshaw fight will be on the same card as Keith Thurman vs. Diego Chaves and Andre Berto vs. Jesus Soto Karass. Also on the card is unbeaten lightweight contender Omar Figueroa facing Nihito Arakawa.
This will be Dirrell’s second fight since coming back from a motorcycle accident in May 2012. Dirrell broke a bone in his lower leg and also fractured his arm. He needed four hours of surgery on the broken bone.
The real tragedy about all this is Dirrell had just won a WBC 168 lb. title eliminator bout against Renan St. Juste in December 2011, and he would have gotten a title shot against Andre Ward or he’d be have been in the position to fight for the vacant title after the WBC stripped Ward.
In his first fight back against Mouton last May, Dirrell looked rusty and not nearly sharp as he was before the injury in winning an unimpressive 8 round unanimous decision. The good news is he won the fight, but the bad news was that Dirrell was hit way too much by an opponent he would have blown out had he not suffered the injuries and had he stayed active.
Hanshaw, 35, is coming off of a 10 round unanimous decision loss to Farrah Ennis from last June. It was a close fight and he gave it a good shot but came up short. Hanshaw also had a 10 round draw earlier this year against Derek Edwards in February.
Dirrell’s brother, Andre Dirrell, easily stopped Handshaw in the 5th round five years ago in 2008. In Handshaw’s fight before that, he had lost a close 12 round unanimous decision to Roy Jones Jr. in July 2007.
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