Dirrell is going to need to somehow try and move more against Bika for this fight otherwise it’s going to be a tough one for him. I’m not sure that Dirrell has the wheels to move for 12 continuous rounds like he’s going to need to for this to be an easy fight. He doesn’t have the stamina or the legs to move around the ring the way needs to in this fight.
Dirrell’s fighting style is a lot different from his older brother Andre Dirrell, who likes to use a lot of movement to stay out of the way of shots. Anthony tends to stand flat-footed in front of his opponents, and that’s something that led to him having problems in the Bika fight last December.
Dirrell didn’t have the punch output to keep Bika off of him or to take him out. As such, the fight ended up being a really hard one for Dirrell because of the punishment he took while on the ropes.
Bika stalked Dirrell constantly, pounding him to the body and the head each time he would back up to the ropes to fight. In the center of the ring, Dirrell had the advantage with his superior hand speed and power. In the 8th round, Dirrell badly hurt Bika with a big right hand. He then moved him down for a knockdown.
Bika was able to come back with his roughhouse tactics to gain the edge in the last 4 rounds of the fight. In the 11th, Bika hit Dirrell while he was on the canvas after he’d slipped. Moments later, Bika hit Dirrell low with a tremendous shot. The referee working the fight took a point off from Bika, but he continued to play it rough for the remainder of the round with some rabbit shots to the back of Dirrell’s head.
Andre Dirrell would likely have an easy time beating a guy like Bika, because he moves so much better than Anthony. Bika’s wild shots would leave him open to taking a lot of hard counters from Andre, and it would quickly become very one sided. It would be interesting to see Andre fight Bika after Anthony’s fight with him, regardless of the outcome of their fight.
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