Andre Dirrell with important clash against Nick Brinson on 10/8

By Boxing News - 09/30/2014 - Comments

dirrell654By Scott Gilfoid:
#9 WBC Andre Dirrell (22-1, 15 KOs) has an important clash coming up in a little over a week from now against Nick Brinson (16-2-2, 6 KOs) on October 8th at the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino, in Biloxi, Mississippi, USA.

The fight, which is scheduled for 10 rounds, will get Dirrell a lot of visibility due to the fight being televised by ESPN. The main event on the card is IBF middleweight champion Sam Soliman (44-11, 18 KOs) facing former IBF/WBA/WBC/WBO middleweight champion Jermain Taylor (32-4-1, 20 KOs) in a 12 round world title fight. Boxing fans will be in for a real treat in seeing two quality fights in Dirrell-Brinson and Soliman-Taylor.

Both Taylor and Dirrell have superb hand speed and boxing talent. This should be an interesting fight card from start to finish.

Dirrell’s management were hoping to get the UK’s Luke Blackledge (17-2, 6 KOs), but unfortunately Blackledge chose not to take the fight with Dirrell. It’s possible that Dirrell’s adviser picked out Blackledge to help whet the boxing public’s interest for some bigger fights between Dirrell against some of the UK’s other fighters like IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch, James DeGale and George Groves.

“I had to turn it down. He’s a world class fighter and I was only given three weeks’ notice to fight him,” Blackledge told clitheroeadvertiser.co.uk. “The money offered wasn’t great either and the risk has to be worth the reward. It’s great that I’ve been given that opportunity to fight in America but it wasn’t right for me. He’s [Dirrell] only ever lost to Carl Froch!”

Blackledge would have been a nice little scalp for Dirrell to snatch to get ready for a bigger fight against the likes of Froch, who Dirrell already called out after his recent impressive win over Vladine Biosse last August.

Dirrell took Biosse out in just 5 rounds and then immediately called out Froch. That’s a fight that Dirrell has wanted for the past 5 years ever since he lost to Froch by a highly controversial decision in 2009 in the Super Six Tournament in Nottingham, UK.

Groves or DeGale would be good little fights for Dirrell as well to increase interest for a Froch-Dirrell 2 rematch in 2015, if either of those fighters would be willing to take the risk of fighting Dirrell. I kind of doubt that they would, given his huge talent, experience and skills advantage.



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