By Scott Gilfoid: WBC super middleweight champion Sakio Bika (32-5-3, 21 KOs) seems to realize that he’s going to be facing a much different Anthony Dirrell (26-0-1, 22 KOs) this Saturday night than the last one he faced last December at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
In that fight, Dirrell fought pretty much the same way Floyd Mayweather Jr did in his last fight against Marcos Maidana by standing directly in front of him. Dirrell made it hard for himself by staying stationary against a fighter as rough and as tough as Bika with his physical style of fighting.
The outcome was a 12 round draw, and the only reason it ended in a draw was because Dirrell frequently beat Bika to the punch with his faster hands, and he landed the cleaner shots in the fight. Many of Bika’s punches were rabbit shots with a few low blows mixed in. Dirrell plans on making it different this time by going out and boxing Bika this time, and not letting him have a stationary target.
“I’m not going to change too much. I’m coming out to fight,” Bika said. “I don’t want to run around and chase him. I’m going to show Anthony that I’m ready to do exactly what I’ve always done: to make people happy to see me fight. If he wants to take my belt off of me he better come prepared.”
Bika is going to have to use his 35-year-old legs to try and cut off the ring in this fight because Dirrell is going to be using the entire ring this time. He’s not going to make it easy for Bika this time. If you look at the guys that beat Bika in the past, Lucian Bute, Andre Ward and Joe Calzaghe, they all used movement against him to get the better of him.
For whatever reason, Dirrell chose not to follow their blueprint in his first fight with Bika, but you can bet that he’s going to be following the blueprint on Saturday night. He knows how beat Bika and he knows the mistakes he made the last time he fought him. His brother Andre Dirrell has given him tips in how to out-box Bika and he’s going to be following them to the letter in this fight to pick up the strap.
The winner of the Bika-Dirrell fight will likely be facing #4 WBC George Groves next because he’s got an easy WBC title eliminator coming up on September 20th against Christopher Rebrasse and he should win that fight easily to get the title shot.
The Dirrell vs. Bika 2 fight will be taking place at the StubHub Center, in Carson, California, USA.
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